Coleman Q1 Fundraising: Rhetoric vs. Reality

Fundraising for U.S. Senate campaigns is a case in point for electronic disclosure.  As current disclosure rules stand, U.S. House campaigns must disclose FEC data electronically, meaning their reports are easily searchable.  However, Senate campaigns are allowed to scan hard-copy FEC reports and send them in, meaning that anyone who wants to dig deeply into the data has an arduous task ahead.

Nevertheless, that is just what the Minnesota Monitor team has done with Senator Norm Coleman’s first-quarter FEC report — and we turned up some interesting connections between the Coleman campaign’s rhetoric and reality.

Read more after the breakRhetoric:  “70% of Norm Coleman’s donors are from Minnesota.  Al Franken is raising large amounts of money from out of state.”

Reality:  FEC reports only get us part of the way to a “yea-or-nay” on this statement, because the FEC only requires donations of $200 or more to be itemized.  However, among itemized donations, Coleman received around 1200 donations in Q1 2007, and fewer than 600 were from donors with a Minnesota address — far short of 70%. 

Rhetoric:  “Al Franken is drawing support from out-of-touch Hollywood liberals.”

Reality:  While it can be said that Al Franken is receiving support from his many contacts in the entertainment industry, what is missing from Coleman’s rhetoric here is where his strongest industrial and geographic support is.  Geographically speaking, Coleman raised over $320,000 of his $1.5 million total from Minnesota, $198,550 from California, $105,000 from Florida, more than $60,000 from Arizona, and more than $34,000 each from Virginia, New York, and Pennsylvania.  Of Coleman’s California total, more than $140,000 came from the Los Angeles area, including more than $40,000 from Beverly Hills.

Only two actors made large donations to Coleman’s campaign, so the entertainment industry may not be on his side.  However, he did receive strong support from corporate executives:  first-quarter donations from individuals who listed their occupation as President, Vice President, CEO, CFO, Executive, or Chairman totaled more than $244,000.  Coleman also drew strong support from investment professionals, with more than $38,000 raised.

Rhetoric: “We’re extremely excited that we have so much support from within the state.”

Reality::  In Q1 2007, Coleman raised two and half times as much from southern California as he did from Minneapolis; more from the Phoenix metro area than from St. Paul; more from New York City than from Wayzata, and more from Washington D.C. than from Minnetonka.  Donors from Naples, Florida (population:  22,000)  also beat out Minnesota’s capital city of St. Paul (population:  287,151).

Check back soon for more analysis of Norm Coleman’s early fundraising.