Allen Weh
Republican gubernatorial candidate Allen Weh raised almost $560,000 in the last reporting period, with almost half of that coming in the form of a personal loan from Weh and his wife to the campaign.
Weh made the announcement about his May-October fundraising in a news release, but he didn’t say how much he spent during that period or how much cash he had on hand at the end of the quarter.
Weh said his fundraising included $244,893.22 in individual contributions, $64,925.10 in in-kind contributions and the $250,000 personal loan.
“New Mexicans tell me they want leadership in Santa Fe that they can count on, and that’s why our fundraising efforts have been so successful, so quickly,” Weh said in the release. “Voters want to see an end to corruption in Santa Fe and they want to elect an outsider with real business experience who can get our economy moving forward by creating jobs.”
Weh did not release a copy of his finance report, and it has not yet been posted on the secretary of state’s Web site.
Weh said his fundraising includes contributions from 600 individual donors, and said more than half of the funds he raised came from in New Mexico but outside of Albuquerque.
Nearly three-fourths of his money was raised since Sept. 8, when he officially entered the race, the news release states.
Weh said he knows “it will take millions of dollars to run a successful race against the entrenched political machine in Santa Fe and Diane Denish, so we’re very serious about this aspect of our campaign and confident in our ability to raise the money we’ll need to get the job done.”
“We intend to have the funds necessary to execute our campaign plan all the way to Election Day,” he said. “Unfortunately, many Republican candidates in New Mexico start running too late, with too little money in the bank. That’s not going to happen to us. We are just getting started.”
Weh’s opponents haven’t yet released fundraising information, but finance reports are due today. I wrote last week that Weh would probably lead the pack in fundraising.
Earlier today Denish, the only declared Democratic candidate for governor, announced that she had raised more than $1 million during the reporting period and ended it with $2.2 million on hand.
Update, 2:10 p.m.
Weh reported spending $122,728.92 and finished the reporting period with $372,164.30 on hand.