Dayton, Entenza finance campaigns with millions of their personal wealth

Matt Entenza, Mark Dayton

The two remaining Minnesota gubernatorial candidates released their campaign finance reports Tuesday, and, as expected, they lead the pack by a wide margin.

Mark Dayton and Matt Entenza, both running for the DFL gubernatorial nomination, have pumped millions of their own money into their campaigns. Since the first of the year, Entenza has spent $3.58 million of his own money campaigning, while Dayton has used $2.76 million of his wealth. Dayton raised $189,000 from outside sources with $334,000 cash left on hand, and Entenza raised $360,000 from other sources with $132,000 cash on hand.

The two millionaire candidates have vastly outspent the third DFL candidate, Margaret Anderson Kelliher, who had raised just under $1 million this year, and the Republican candidate Tom Emmer, who reported $785,000 raised. But both Kelliher and Emmer gained far more than Dayton and Entenza in independent contributions. Independence Party candidate Tom Horner is far behind the rest of the pack in fundraising.

All four major candidates reported relatively similar amounts of cash left in their campaign banks , but Entenza and Dayton’s numbers are misleading as both candidates will likely infuse more money into their own campaigns if they reach the general election.