The numbers aren’t quite final, but a look at the Public Disclosure Commission database tells us this was an election for the island history books. The six candidates for city council, plus the PACs that supported them, raised a grand total of $126,190.29.
The six individual candidates for the three council seats raised a total of $92,921.29. Of that amount, the Roth/Townsend/Tollefson slate raised a combined $49,998.35, with Tollefson raising the most of that group ($25,978.99). Quality Bainbridge, which organized as a PAC and endorsed Roth, Townsend and Tollefson, raised an additional $3444 on behalf of the slate.
Arlene Buetow, Dee McComb and Dick Haugan together raised a slightly lower amount: $42,922.94. T-PAC raised another $28,825 for that slate.
Haugan raised the most of any individual candidate of either slate, at $28,600.
They didn’t spend it all of course, and how could they? Bainbridge is not a major media market. There is no television or radio for ad buys. We have a diffuse news media market, split among two newspapers and an online news website. There were the plethora of glossy mailers, but how many votes can candidates win on multiple mailers with the same basic message?
The official expenditure numbers are likely to go up, but as of the most recent PDC filings, Dick Haugan, with his many ad buys and mailers, spent the most at $12,018, while Dee McComb spent the least at $2552.74. Candidates Haugan, Buetow and McComb spent a combined $23,018.33. T-PAC spent an additional $12,357.12 on their behalf, for a T-PAC slate total of $35,375.45.
The victors–Tollefson, Roth and Townsend—spent slightly more for their landslide wins than did the T-PAC slate: a combined total of $35,322.14. Quality Bainbridge, which registered as a PAC and endorsed the slate, spent $2882.94, for a slate total of $38,151.08. (more…)
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