U.S. Rep. Harry Teague (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
U.S. Rep. Harry Teague, D-N.M., raised $257,000 for his re-election campaign from July to September.
Teague’s campaign said he has $757,000 on hand for his re-election bid, which puts him almost $300,000 ahead of his challenger, former U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, a Republican.
However, Pearce didn’t enter the race until the start of the fundraising period that just ended. In that time, Pearce quickly gained ground by raising just under $508,000 – nearly twice what Teague raised in the same period.
In a news release announcing his fundraising for the quarter, Teague talked about the work he’s done since he took office in January:
“One of the primary reasons I ran for Congress was because I thought people in Southern New Mexico needed and deserved a representative who would listen to them and who would stay in touch with the district instead of packing up and moving to Washington,” Teague said.
“I am proud to say that, since January, I’ve been able to meet with thousands of constituents in all corners of our beautiful and diverse district,” he said. “I’ve been in New Mexico visiting with constituents for all but three weekends since I was sworn in and I’ve already held over 60 public ‘Harry in Your Hometown’ events.”
Teague said he is “proud of the level of support our campaign has received” and he is “committed to raising the resources necessary to get our message out and defend against the extreme partisan attacks already underway.”
“…but right now I am more focused on staying in touch with constituents and doing the work I was elected to do — like turning our economy around, ending our dependence on foreign oil so we can build the energy economy here at home in New Mexico, and fighting for our veterans who have been neglected for far too long,” Teague said.
Teague did not say how much cash he spent during the last quarter or release other information from his finance report. The report is not yet available on the Federal Election Commission’s Web site.
Pearce, according to his report, spent about $48,000 and ended the quarter with $459,612.80 on hand. According to the report, $452,395.06 of the money he raised came from individual donors, and the other $50,450 came from political action committees.
The Pearce campaign said 80 percent of his contributions came from 1,100 New Mexicans.
A prior version of this posting contained incorrect numbers, but they have been corrected. Teague’s news release states that he has “banked” $757,000 thus far, which I took to mean that he had raised that amount thus far, and that’s what I originally wrote. After this article originally published, Teague’s spokesperson called to say the release actually meant that Teague had $757,000 on hand at the end of the third quarter, and I updated this article accordingly.