State Rep. Cory Gardner's campaign for Congress announced this morning it raised more than $200,000 in the first seven weeks after entering the race for the 4th CD. Fundraising reports for all federal candidates are due to elections officials by July 15 for the quarter ending June 30, but it is typical for campaigns to announce totals ahead of their official filings.
GardnerFTS File Photo
According to Mike Ciletti, spokesman for the Gardner camp, 453 of 492 individual donors are from Colorado and represent roughly $191,000 of the total raised. Gardner has so far only received three contributions from Political Action Committees: Cornell Industries, Questar Employee PAC and the Independent Petroleum Association PAC.
By comparison, incumbent U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey, D-Fort Collins, raised over $342,000 in the first quarter of 2009, the last reporting period for which data is available.
Multi-candidate federal PACs are allowed to give up $10,000 to a congressional candidate, $5,000 for a primary and another $5,000 for the general election. Some PACs choose to get involved with primaries early, in hopes of swaying the nomination, while others wait until parties have picked their candidates to give. Individual contributions are limited by law to $4,800 in total.
Gardner is one of two officially announced candidates to challenge Markey, with a third entrant likely this fall. University of Colorado Regent Tom Lucero, R-Loveland, announced his candidacy in December, and a committee to “Draft Diggs Brown,” former Fort Collins City Council member, is also raising money. The latter is expected to send out a press release regarding its fundraising totals later today, according to spokesman Andy Nickel.
The Lucero campaign did not return a request for comment Tuesday morning.