Republican John Curtis outspent Democrat Kathie Allen in November’s special congressional election, but just barely.
Final post-election filings show Curtis spent $906,988 in his winning campaign, while Allen spent $854,998. In total, the candidates who competed in any phase of the race spent a total of $2.48 million this year.
Curtis’s spending surged by $250,000 in the final stretch before election day. Most of the late spending by Curtis’s campaign was for campaign consulting and advertising.
In the final pre-election report, Curtis’s spending actually trailed Allen’s by approximately $125,000. However, Allen only spent about $50,000 over the final campaign stretch.
Allen spent a total of $854,998 on the race to win just under 38,000 votes, which works out to about $23 per vote. Curtis’s campaign was a little more economical, spending about $10.50 per vote.
Fundraising by the two campaigns was a portrait in contrasts. Allen’s fundraising was mostly fueled by small-dollar donations. Most of the $861,190 she raised in total were from contributions under $200. On the other hand, Curtis was able to pull in big-dollar donations, with more than $1 million coming from contributions of $2,000 or more.
Less than 5% of Curtis’s campaign donations came from small individual contributions, while nearly 63% were from big donors. Almost 1/4 of Curtis’s donations came from political action committees.
78% of Allen’s campaign contributions came from small-dollar donations, while just 22% was from large individual contributions.
United Utah Party nominee Jim Bennett raised just $14,880 for the race and spent $8,736. Bennett captured 9% of the vote.
An analysis by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics found the lion’s share of Curtis’s campaign donations came from inside Utah (84%), while more than half (55%) of Allen’s contributions came from out of state. Curtis also pulled in most of his donations (57%) from inside the 3rd CD. Only 8% of Allen’s donations were from the constituents she was vying to represent.
Curtis beat Allen by 32-points in the final election tally.
Curtis ended the race with nearly $50,000 on hand, which will help since he’s facing a re-election race in 2018. Allen had just $6,100 that went unspent.
