Democratic 2nd District challenger Charlene Albarran is trying to keep pace with Rep. Chris Stewart in the fundraising race, but it’s mostly because she’s funneling lots of her own money into the contest.
The latest Federal Election Commission reports show Albarran has $191,147 cash on hand. But, most of the donations have come from her personal wealth. The most recent summary shows Albarran brought in $170,274 in the last quarter, but $151,464 of that total was made up of contributions by Albarran to her campaign.
In other words, for every dollar Albarran brought in through donations in the last quarter, she donated another 8 dollars to herself.
On the other hand, Republican incumbent Chris Stewart’s donations during the last quarter mostly came from PACs. Stewart reported $149,148 in donations, but $90,500 were from political action committees.
The largest PAC contributions to Stewart were $5,000 each from Prosperity Action, the PAC founded by House Speaker Paul Ryan and the Automotive Free International Trade Pac (AFIT-PAC).
A big portion of expenditures for both campaigns during the last quarter was on advertising. Stewart’s campaign spent $37,071 during the quarter, including $12,500 on radio ads and another $1,000 on digital ads with Google and Facebook. Albarran’s campaign had a different focus on advertising, spending the bulk on billboard ads, nearly $13,000.
In 2014, Stewart raised more than $700,000 for the entire election, far outpacing his Democratic opponent.
So far this election cycle, Stewart has raised $611,548 to Albarran’s $398,277. However, the vast majority of Albarran’s contributions were donations she made to her own campaign, totaling $351,464.
