At a press conference Thursday morning, Democratic party chairman Brian Melendez addressed the second quarter fundraising figures for Steve Sarvi, who is seeking to knock off incumbent Rep. John Kline. The DFL challenger brought in just $145,000 and had less than $100,000 cash on hand at the end of June. By comparison, Kline had more than $500,000 in the bank at the end of March. His campaign hasn’t yet released figures for the second quarter.

Melendez stated that at this point in the 2006 election cycle nobody gave Tim Walz much of a chance to knock off six-term incumbent Gil Gutknecht either. "When you’re running against an incumbent it’s always an uphill fight," he said. "But you know what? If you look at where the Sarvi campaign is right now, look at where the Walz campaign was two year ago, and you’ll see that they’re pretty comparable. Look at what happened there. I have a great deal of confidence that Steve Sarvi is going to be the next Congressman from the Second District."

A look back at Walz’s Federal Elections Commission filings from his successful 2006 campaign doesn’t entirely back up this assertion, however. In the second quarter of that year, the Minnesota National Guard veteran and school teacher took in $195,000 and had cash on hand heading into the summer of roughly $250,000. At that point in the election cycle he’d raised almost $200,000 more than Sarvi has during his current campaign.