Q3 Fund Raising Deadline Sunday

Midnight Sunday marked the end of the third quarter of 2007, at which point federal campaigns were required to submit reports on their fund-raising progress to the Federal Election Commission. 

This deadline may be a make-or-break point for several presidential campaigns.  Second-tier candidates may need very good numbers to maintain the legitimacy their campaigns desperately need. 

The leading Democratic candidates — Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York and former Sen. John Edwards — are taking very different approaches to their fund-raising pushes.  Edwards’ email updates have encouraged supporters to give online, setting lower goals than Clinton and Obama but emphasizing Edwards’ opposition to Washington lobbyists.  Clinton’s campaign has busied itself estimating Obama’s fund-raising take much higher than it figures to be, while Obama’s team has emphasized massive numbers — 350,000 individual donors so far, with more than 500,000 individual donations — to prove the Illinois senator’s appeal as a “movement” candidate and not just a political leader.

Dollar totals this quarter figure to be lower, as each candidate taps out major donors and must scrounge for smaller-dollar checks.  This is where Obama may have an advantage, with the ability to make repeated asks of his wider donor base.

As far as Minnesota is concerned… remember that Senate race?  The aforementioned limitation applies here too — DFLer Al Franken’s donor base has a much lower average donation, but incumbent Norm Coleman has sunk significant resources into his national fund-raising operation.  Franken’s fellow DFLer Mike Ciresi’s fund-raising totals so far have been lower than Franken’s and Coleman’s, but Ciresi has said numerous times in public that his campaign will have the financial resources necessary to compete.

DFL congressman Tim Walz has shown quite solid dollar totals so far, as has Republican Michele Bachmann.  Both have been targeted for defeat in 2008 by their opposition.