The Money Chase, April Update: State Treasurer

Here's our first look at the money chase for the State Treasurer race.

Last month, GOP candidate Allen Alley joined Democratic candidate Senator Ben Westlund in the race.

Through April 1, Allen Alley hadn't raised a dime. At least, nothing's been reported to ORESTAR - though candidates do have the option of delaying reporting by 30 days.

Meanwhile, Senator Ben Westlund has raised $36k since the beginning of the year - on top of the $8k balance he carried into 2008.

Westlund's daily pace (over 90 days) is $499/day - though $631/day over the last 30 days.

Here's the box scores and the charts:

 AlleyWestlund
last updated3-31-20083-28-2008
2007 starting balance$0$8,584
current total$0$44,923
cash contributions044
average contribution$0$821
daily pace (last 90)$0$499
daily pace (last 30)$0$631

Technical notes on the jump...

We retrieved this data from ORESTAR on April 1, 2008. Because campaigns can choose to delay their reporting up to 30 days, some recent data isn't available yet. The "daily pace" is based on the last 30 or 90 days for which we do have data. Our chart starts in January 2008. The "average contribution" is based on actual cash contributions since January 1, 2008 - while the "current total" includes in-kind contributions, sold items, interest income, and the starting balance. Also, some campaigns lump together under-$100 contributions into a single line item - so the number of contributions may be slightly understated and the average contribution slightly overstated. In order to measure campaign strength, these numbers include the initial cash-on-hand on January 1, 2008 plus all funds raised since then.

Why not look at cash-on-hand? Because it doesn't lend itself to an apples-to-apples view. The goal is to provide a snapshot view that compares the financial strength of the statewide campaigns and legislative caucuses. Does a low cash-on-hand mean that a campaign is failing to raise money? Or does it mean that they're spending money on big-ticket items like polling, direct mail, and television? We assume that campaigns spend money in whatever way they think is most strategically smart. So, looking at the total funds raised since January 1, 2008 (plus the opening balance that day) is the best snapshot of overall financial strength.

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