Reichert's Fundraising Numbers Finally In: Burner Beats Them By $100,000

The Reichert campaign has finally posted their end of 2007 fundraising numbers and it is pretty clear why they took so long to do so by the look of it:

WA-08 End of Year Fundraising. Source: Federal Election Commission

Darcy Burner out-raised Reichert in the 4th quarter by over $100,000.

This follows up her performance of Q3 in which she out-raised the congressman by $10,000 even after George Bush came to town to try and fund-raise for Reichert.

In fact, Reichert's Q4 numbers are worse than his Q2 numbers, as he raised $53,541 less than last quarter, while Burner raised $36,571 more than she did in Q3.

The difference? Individual contributions.

Burner listed 311 contributions for $242,295 to Reichert's 187 for a total of only $151,293. Meanwhile, Reichert doubled Burner's take from Political Action Committees (PACs), and about a third of all his contributions is coming from PACs. In contrast, Burner gets over 88% of her contributions through individual contributions.

Reichert is also spending more of the money he is raising, and for the election cycle has spent $264,448 more than Burner, which amounts to about about 3 months of fundraising dollars.

This all results in Burner having $144,315 more cash on hand than Reichert at $607,143.

As compared to Reichert's numbers from two years ago, he has raised $100,000 less than back then, while spending $47,500 more. He has $117,000 less cash on hand at this point than he had two years ago. Meanwhile Burner has almost half a million dollars more cash on hand than she did at this point two years ago in a race she started as a complete unknown, and that ended with Reichert eking out a 7000 vote margin of victory.

Clearly Reichert is not doing as well fundraising this election cycle as he did last election cycle, and Burner is doing very well.

Oh, and for this cycle Reichert continues to have to refund contributions, with another $5,300 this time for an election cycle total of $57,950. It is really hard to raise money when you're having to give it back or you're spending it too fast.

Here's one thing Reichert should perhaps spend more money on: a better treasurer. This Paul Kilgore guy he's got now is not only sloppy, but slow as molasses in submitting FEC reports or responding to FEC requests for documentation.