Tracking Campaign Spending
TRI-CITIES -- Candidates are spending millions of dollars to get your vote. As we prepare for primaries Tuesday, KEPR Action News is following the money in the big race for senate.
It's crunch time at campaign headquarters for Clint Didier in Kennewick. Volunteers for the Republican candidate still have more phone calls and more envelopes to stuff. It's one last push until primary day.
The big prep work for democratic Senator Patty Murray's camp is happening on the west side, getting ready for President Obama to make a primary day swing through the state.
And one-time gubernatorial hopeful Republican Dino Rossi has made waves of his own but mostly through his TV ads.
The candidates came out swinging and it's only the primaries. KEPR looked through the records and found hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on media buys, pollster phone calls — and all those signs.
KEPR looked through the federal filings to find out how much these big three candidates are spending in this race. The expense reports for Murray is like a book, Didier is quite a few pages, but only one page for Rossi. KEPR points this out because it's not exactly the whole story.
Candidates don't have to file their financial reports until Tuesday and Rossi hasn't filed since June, unlike Didier and Murray, whose records were filed just a couple weeks ago.
So keep that in mind as we break down the cash flow.
According to the Federal Election Commission, so far Murray's campaign has raised $7.4 million and spent $6.7 million.
That number is a bit higher if you look at independent website opensecrets.org — they have Murray outspending her opponents by even more. They say she's now raised $11 million and spent $9 million.
Didier's campaign raised about $750,000 and spent $624,000.
For Rossi: $1.4 million raised and around $65,000 spent. But again, these are old numbers. KEPR called the Rossi campaign to see if they could provide a more accurate number, but they said we’ll have to wait until Tuesday.
But what you can see in the numbers is what you're already seeing in this campaign: This is no softball race, it's going to be a fight to the finish.
And KEPR found out, two of those candidates will be in the Tri-Cities this week. Clint Didier is expected at his Kennewick headquarters Tuesday night.
And we're told Rossi is expected to be in the Benton-Franklin Fair & Rodeo parade this weekend.
The top two candidates move on to the general election in November.
It's crunch time at campaign headquarters for Clint Didier in Kennewick. Volunteers for the Republican candidate still have more phone calls and more envelopes to stuff. It's one last push until primary day.
The big prep work for democratic Senator Patty Murray's camp is happening on the west side, getting ready for President Obama to make a primary day swing through the state.
And one-time gubernatorial hopeful Republican Dino Rossi has made waves of his own but mostly through his TV ads.
The candidates came out swinging and it's only the primaries. KEPR looked through the records and found hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on media buys, pollster phone calls — and all those signs.
KEPR looked through the federal filings to find out how much these big three candidates are spending in this race. The expense reports for Murray is like a book, Didier is quite a few pages, but only one page for Rossi. KEPR points this out because it's not exactly the whole story.
Candidates don't have to file their financial reports until Tuesday and Rossi hasn't filed since June, unlike Didier and Murray, whose records were filed just a couple weeks ago.
So keep that in mind as we break down the cash flow.
According to the Federal Election Commission, so far Murray's campaign has raised $7.4 million and spent $6.7 million.
That number is a bit higher if you look at independent website opensecrets.org — they have Murray outspending her opponents by even more. They say she's now raised $11 million and spent $9 million.
Didier's campaign raised about $750,000 and spent $624,000.
For Rossi: $1.4 million raised and around $65,000 spent. But again, these are old numbers. KEPR called the Rossi campaign to see if they could provide a more accurate number, but they said we’ll have to wait until Tuesday.
But what you can see in the numbers is what you're already seeing in this campaign: This is no softball race, it's going to be a fight to the finish.
And KEPR found out, two of those candidates will be in the Tri-Cities this week. Clint Didier is expected at his Kennewick headquarters Tuesday night.
And we're told Rossi is expected to be in the Benton-Franklin Fair & Rodeo parade this weekend.
The top two candidates move on to the general election in November.
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