Democrat Ben McAdams has more cash in the bank than Republican Mia Love heading into the final stretch of the 2018 campaign.
According to quarterly financial disclosures filed Monday night, McAdams reports $724,913 in his campaign account, while Love has $541,410.
Love’s fundraising during the period covering July to October outpaced McAdams slightly. She raised $1.06 million in donations, while McAdams pulled in $869,806. Love has raised, in total, more than $4.31 million during the current election cycle, while McAdams has total donations of more than $2.54 million.
While both campaigns are raising big bucks, they’re spending big, too. Love reported total operating expenditures during the latest 3-month period of $1.76 million, compared to McAdams outlay of $1.39 million. In total, Love has spent $4.26 million so far this election cycle, while McAdams reports operating expenditures of $1.81 million.
Those eye-popping numbers are still behind the total spending from the 2016 rematch between Mia Love and Democrat Doug Owens. That year, Love raised $5.37 million and spent $5.48 million. Owens raised and spent just over $2 million. The difference between 2016 and this year is McAdams has more than double the amount of money for the stretch run than Owens did in 2016.
McAdams’s campaign has been outspending Love on TV advertising by more than double in recent weeks. That disparity should even out some as independent groups have begun purchasing airtime in the race.
The closeness of the contest was reflected in a testy debate between Love and McAdams on Monday night where the two candidates took shots at each other over their respective partisan affiliations and voting records.
The contest between McAdams and Love is rated as a “toss up” by the Cook Political Report. A poll released Monday from the Hinckley Institute of Politics showed the contest as a dead heat, with each candidate getting 46% support and 8% undecided
FiveThirtyEight.com’s projection suggests Love should win by just 2.1% over McAdams, even though UT-4 is rated as a +20 district for Republicans. The website gives McAdams a 3 in 8 chance of upsetting Love.
