{"id":3150,"date":"2008-04-28T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-28T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/04\/most-cd2-hopefuls-giving-big-to-their-own-campaigns\/"},"modified":"2008-04-28T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-28T14:00:00","slug":"most-cd2-hopefuls-giving-big-to-their-own-campaigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/04\/most-cd2-hopefuls-giving-big-to-their-own-campaigns\/","title":{"rendered":"Most CD2 hopefuls giving big to their own campaigns"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

Five of the seven candidates seeking southern New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>\u2019s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives this year have given or loaned their own campaigns at least $100,000.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a situation that\u2019s unique among the state\u2019s congressional races in 2008, and one that a top New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> political analyst says is partly attributable to the unusual makeup of the district.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

While all but two candidates for the 2nd Congressional District seat have contributed $100,000 or more to their own campaigns, only one of the 14 Democratic and Republican candidates for the state\u2019s other congressional seats \u2013 3rd District Democratic candidate Don Wiviott<\/a> \u2013 has done that, loaning his campaign $890,000.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The top self-financing candidate in the 2nd District race is Republican Greg Sowards<\/a>, who has loaned his campaign $325,000. Not far behind is Republican Aubrey Dunn Jr.<\/a>, who has loaned a little more than $302,000 to his campaign. Democrat Harry Teague<\/a> has loaned just under $210,000 to his campaign, while Republican Ed Tinsley<\/a> has loaned $200,000 to his campaign and Republican Monty Newman<\/a> has loaned his campaign $100,000.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The other two candidates in the 2nd District race are Republican C. Earl Greer<\/a> and Democrat Bill McCamley<\/a>. Greer has loaned his campaign almost $28,000, while McCamley has given $8,700 in in-kind contributions, such as gas for his automobile.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Brian Sanderoff, whose company Research and Polling Inc.<\/a> is the top polling firm in the state, said the 2nd District \u201cdoes not have a single city that dominates the political landscape,\u201d which means local politicians who are trying to make the jump to Congress often don\u2019t have widespread name recognition.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In addition, the district is spread out \u2013 it\u2019s the eighth largest in the nation \u2013 and is served by two television media markets, but neither is based in the district (they\u2019re located in Albuquerque<\/st1:city> and El Paso<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>). That makes advertising expensive and complicated. By comparison, the 1st and 3rd districts are located entirely in the Albuquerque<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> media market and have more cohesion.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The bottom line is that few people are known throughout the 2nd District, and building significant name recognition is a challenge, Sanderoff said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThese factors contribute to the proliferation of candidates with personal wealth who enter the race knowing that they will have to utilize their own seed money to get off the ground and gain recognition that will, hopefully, lead to their ability to raise funds from other parties,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Reasons for self-financing<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Does seed money work? Two candidates who have contributed big money to their own campaigns \u2013 Tinsley and Teague \u2013 had also raised the most money from outside contributions as of March 31, with Tinsley raising almost $423,000 and Teague raising about $367,000. But McCamley was in third, having raised almost $342,000 from outside contributions. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Newman, who didn\u2019t enter the race until January, says he raised more from people living in the 2nd District during the first quarter of 2008 than all other GOP candidates combined. He said the money he loaned his campaign \u201cis a lot of money for me, but if other people are willing to donate money to my campaign for Congress, I should be prepared to put my own money into the campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Sowards and Dunn said they contributed to their own campaigns out of principle.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI would rather have not run for Congress, but when I looked at the declared candidates, there was no one among them who would actually represent me as a true conservative with a vision for America<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>,\u201d Sowards said. \u201cOur forefathers pledged everything they had to secure that vision of America<\/st1:country-region><\/st1:place>. I have that same vision and it compels me to offer up the same sacrifices.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Campaign spokesman Mario Burgos said Dunn and his wife provided a \u201cnest egg\u201d as an investment in New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cHe feels that giving back to a community that has given him so much is just the right thing to do,\u201d Burgos<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> said. \u201cThe question is not whether you have to be independently wealthy to be elected to Congress; the question is, if you\u2019ve been afforded the American Dream, should you give back to America<\/st1:country-region><\/st1:place>? Aubrey believes the answer is, unequivocally, \u2018Yes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Teague\u2019s campaign released a statement that said being able to contribute significantly to your own campaign \u201callows you to focus your time talking to voters rather than raising money from special interests.\u201d Tinsley, who started the second quarter of the year with more cash on hand than any other candidate in the race, is confident that his is the only campaign with the resources, message and experience to \u201ccut through the clutter\u201d of the crowded, competitive GOP primary race and win, campaign spokesman Christopher Maloney said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Hoping it\u2019s about more than money<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Because of the crowding in the GOP primary and the number of candidates who were self-financing, Greer said he chose a different tactic, running a grassroots campaign and focusing on personal contacts. The only publicly released polling of the Republican primary showed Greer competing, but not at the front of the pack. The poll<\/a>, conducted for Dunn\u2019s campaign at the end of March, had Dunn at 22 percent, Tinsley at 16 percent and Greer at 10 percent, with a margin of error of 4.9 percent. Newman was at 8 percent and Sowards was at 1 percent in the poll.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exactly where we were hoping it would be at this point,\u201d Greer said. \u201cHere\u2019s an opportunity for New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> to send a clear message to the world that it isn\u2019t all about money.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

McCamley said he\u2019s hopeful that elections are about more than money.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cMoney is important. I\u2019m not going to be na\u00efve and deny it. That\u2019s why I\u2019ve spent so much time raising money,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m hoping that the average New Mexican voter looks past the money and considers the issues and the two candidates on the Democratic side. If they do that, I\u2019m confident that they\u2019ll choose me.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The only publicly released polling of the Democratic primary showed McCamley with a big lead. The poll<\/a>, conducted for McCamley\u2019s campaign in mid-March, had him ahead of Teague by 21 points, 43 percent to 22 percent, with a margin of error of 4.9 percent. Shortly after that poll was released, however, Teague began rapidly spending his money on TV ads, and he has continued running them for weeks. McCamley has not yet run TV ads.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

McCamley said his finance report proves that his hard work and grassroots campaigning have paid off. He said he received 397 contributions during the first quarter of 2008, 88 percent of them from New Mexicans. The average size of his contributions was $204. Teague, by comparison, had fewer than half as many donors, and his average contribution was almost $900.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Greer says he\u2019s also experiencing an outpouring of support and believes voters will make their decision based on \u201cthe message and the individual.\u201d His candidacy depends on it: He\u2019s the only Republican or Democratic candidate who, as of March 31, hadn\u2019t raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are liking the personal contacts. They\u2019re liking the meet-and-greets, the coffees we\u2019re having. They\u2019re liking getting to sit down and look me in the eye and talk to me,\u201d Greer said. \u201cThey\u2019re realizing that I really am what I\u2019m portraying myself to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But Sanderoff said the candidates who can\u2019t or don\u2019t invest a great deal of their own money in the race are at a disadvantage. He said he knows of other potential 2nd District candidates who stayed out of the race because they knew that.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying that you have to have money to win in all circumstances,\u201d Sanderoff said. \u201cI\u2019m just saying in this circumstance, you\u2019re at a disadvantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve disclosed in the past, I\u2019m friends with McCamley. Click here<\/a> to read about that. A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that Tinsley had given his campaign $150,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five of the seven candidates seeking southern New Mexico\u2019s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives this year have given or loaned their own campaigns at least $100,000. It\u2019s a situation that\u2019s unique among the state\u2019s congressional races in 2008, and one that a top New Mexico political analyst says is partly attributable to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}