Well, That’s a Start.
And it is pretty impressive for just one month of fundraising.
New Castle Co. Exec. Chris Coons [D] raised $635K in his first month in the race, CongressDaily’s Erin McPike reports.
The June 30th deadline will be the monster deadline. I suspect he will have to triple that haul for the DSCC to make this race a priority in spending. More as details emerge…
What’s Mike Castle’s haul and COH?
Not bad. Had heard that he needed to get more than 400K this quarter.
OK…got to give his team some props. That is a VERY decent amount!
Pretty good. I wonder what the average donation was.
Dear Chris Coons,
You know I have always been a fan. Please, please, please don’t do this. Stay put in NCC for the remainder of the term, and I promise, promise, promise I will support you in whatever seat you want–even though I heavily encouraged you to primary John Carney this round. I don’t know what else to say or do. I want you to keep your money in your wallet, your talent in NCC, and your name on a ballot…next time. I will be there. Until then….
Kindest regards,
Joanne Christian
PS This promise is null and void if you ever stop straight talking.
Jason, those are the details I want to see.
Joanne, you know I love ya, but Mike Castle does not deserve a pass into the Senate, and you seem to be implying Coons should give him one by not running against him. Further, if Castle is so invincible, Coons will be back at his desk running NCCo for another two years after this election.
I’ll take invincible, for the win DD–and Coons can keep his money and time and me happy in NCC government.
Hey, I offered him a rep seat a long time ago!!! I can only do this Monty Hall thing for so long.
Chris will hold his three-county announcement tour, as is traditional for Delaware, on Monday, April 19th as follows:
10:00AM – The Boardwalk at Rehoboth Avenue, Rehoboth Beach
12:30PM – Delaware Agricultural Museum, 866 N. Dupont Hwy, Dover
3:00PM – IBEW 313 Union Hall, 814 West Basin Rd., New Castle
Wakey, wakey!
Unstable Isotope asked: “What’s Mike Castle’s haul and COH?”
The numbers for the 1st quarter aren’t in, but given Beau didn’t run I can’t imagine that Castle’s contributions didn’t sky rocket. According to OpenSecrets.org Castle had 1.7 million cash on hand as of 12/31/09, and raised over 1.3 in the 4th quarter of 09. From what I heard after Beau announced he wasn’t running fundraising for Castle became a breeze, with money rolling in.
Normally a candidate, especially one with the type of connections Coons has, is able to raise a lot of money in his first quarter. This especially true in a state like Delaware with such low campaign limits for state and local elections. In past races Coons had a lot of bundled money from developers, who were limited to 600.00 a piece. If everyone who previously donated the maximum to him in his 3 county races gave the federal maximum 2,400 per election cycle he would easily raise a million dollars. Normally past big donors are considered low hanging fruit. Although obviously some developers who donate in a county race may not care about the political party in county races, because they are looking for local influence, but party means a lot to them in federal race. And some of these donors are probably Castle supporters, and some may not want to give, because they don’t think he has a chance, and some may not have the ability to give 2,400, so the million dollar figure for low hanging fruit donors is clearly too high, but given the executives from Gore, his family connections, and his huge list of past donors if Coons really only did raise 635K he will have major fund raising trouble.
I doubt Coons will be able to raise money from Henry Tippie and the Rollin’s family as he has in the past. (previously Coons’ received PAC money from two PAC’s “Non-Partisan Citizens for Business Expansion” and “Delaware Citizens for Economic Development”, which were both made up by Tippie and Rollin’s family members.) I hope I’m wrong, because I’d really like to see a race, but to date nothing has caused me to think Coons’ heart is in the race. I really hope I’m wrong, four years of Castle in the Senate is depressing!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Umm Chris has never accepted money directly from developers while serving in a county capacity Mary….so if anything he is hitting them up for the first time…
And $635K for a month is hardly discouraging….
1. Comment by anon : “Umm Chris has never accepted money directly from developers while serving in a county capacity Mary….so if anything he is hitting them up for the first time…”
Really? What’s the source of your information? And I like this directly thing? Do you mean he only asks their wives and children for donations? Because if that is your claim, you’re right the spouses of developers are huge donors (well huge as in 600.00 per election cycle), or if you mean he only hits up attorneys who represent developers, you’re right his campaign finance disclosure forms read like a who’s who of Delaware land use lawyers, including the wife of the Council President! But developers, and developer PAC’s appear on all of Chris’ campaign finance forms, which are available on-line.
If the source of your claim is Chris, he isn’t telling the truth. I’ve heard him during his last campaign say he never has accepted developer’s money, but that’s pure BS. His campaign finance disclosure forms say otherwise. If the GOP does even a minimal check of his records they will be able to kill him not only on his no developer money claim, unless they don’t want to upset their mutual developer friends. But Chris had massive reporting errors in his 2000-year end forms, which weren’t corrected until 2004, and then only after confronted by Celia Cohen. He first tried passing off an amended report that was never filed, and then blamed his treasurer, and claimed not to know the law, despite graduating from Yale law school, and at the time he was still in-house attorney at Gore.
I’m not claiming Chris’ contributions from developers were illegal, or from their PAC’s, or even from their companies. Most states (and federal campaign laws) prohibit corporate campaign contributions, but Delaware doesn’t. However a lot of states allow unlimited contributions, and Delaware has too low a cap, which should be raised. Ignoring the long list of attorneys whose income is almost solely earned from developers, because you said “directly from developers”, what do you call Wayne Rogers of MD? According to newspaper reports he’s listed as a developer. Both Wayne and his company Synergics Energy Development have given Chris the 600 max contribution. Artesian Water Company is considered a developer in my book. What about Joseph DiNunzio, or Sam Beard, chairman of the “National Development Council”, MAK Associates refers to itself as a development company, Maguire Group Inc, has donated the max before, they brag about their work on the big dig in Boston on their website. Adams, Rehmann & Heggen Associates claims to be a development company on its website, and brags about having “developed personal relationships-both governmental and private”, Remington Group Inc, and Remington, Vernick & Arango Engineers out of NJ have given direct corporate contributions, and the principals and their spouses also gave the max to Chris), Corrado Construction’s website states they aren’t just developers they “also build communities”, Bancroft Construction, Westrum Development from PA. Alaimo Associates has made direct corporate contributions, and its principals, as well as family members (right down to a son-in law whose a NJ cop) have donated the max allowed to Chris. This company has been mentioned in articles in NJ pay to play scandals, their website brags they “are one of the few firms that specialize in work for the public sector.” The list goes on. Taking contributions from developers is neither illegal, nor unethical, but claiming you don’t take their money, and tarnishing developers as a group with dirty money, and then having these donations repeatedly show up on page after page on your required disclosure forms makes you a hypocrite. Unlike some political candidates who have limited resources, Chris did not need to take their money, if he really wanted to claim that he doesn’t take developer money, he should have self funded his campaign like he basically did in 2000 when he ran for Council President, or backed off painting all developers as bad!
Look I hope Chris is able to raise enough money to make the race competitive, but if he raised under a million dollars from early February when he got in the race until the March 31st midnight deadline that is a bad fundraising sign. It is simply a fact. Few candidates with his connections have an easier time raising money than they do in the first quarter.
Wow you must sleep with his report under your pillow. On the contrary the $635K is very strong and well above what his goal was from the DSCC. We’ll agree to disagree otherwise.