Cory Gardner Latest News

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Republican congressional front-runner Cory Gardner raised more than $273,000 in the first quarter of the year, a record for a challenger in Colorado's 4th Congressional District race and another sign the fall campaign will be one of the nation's most hotly contested and expensive House races this year.

"It was strong but not unanticipated. We've certainly been building a lot of momentum, and I think this just reflects that, especially that the majority of the money that came in was from inside Colorado," Gardner campaign manager Chris Hansen said.

Gardner's first quarter haul and his total to date -$864,000 - are the most ever for a challenger in the Northern Colorado district, surpassing Democrat Betsy Markey's 2008 totals at this point of the campaign, which ended with her ousting Republican incumbent Marilyn Musgrave.

Even with Gardner's record fundraising, Markey has built a huge financial advantage seven months before the election, which is frequently the case for incumbents. She has raised $1.7 million, including $505,000 in the first quarter of the year, and had $1.25 million in the bank at the end of March. Gardner had about $540,000 in the bank at that point.

"It will be expensive, and Markey will out-spend Gardner," Colorado State University political scientist John Straayer said. "The really tough stuff will likely come from outside groups, and get ready - this will not be pretty."

Hansen agreed that Markey will outspend Gardner, but he said the campaign's goal is to raise enough money to stay competitive with the incumbent in getting messages out.

"All the money in the world is not going to buy her a good voting record as far as the district is concerned," he said, citing her support of the stimulus bill, cap-and-trade legislation and the health-care bill.

Before taking on Markey, Gardner, a state representative from Yuma, must first defeat two other Republicans in the race, Tom Lucero of Berthoud and Dean Madere of Loveland. They have not yet announced their most recent fundraising totals, which must be reported to the Federal Election Commis-sion by Thursday.

Gardner handily defeated other Republicans in Weld and Larimer counties preference polls during March precinct caucuses. His delegate lead in those counties and his strength in the eastern part of the district will make it difficult for one of the other candidates to get 30 percent of the delegates at next month's district assembly in Loveland, the minimum amount needed to qualify for the Aug. 10 primary ballot.

"We're preparing to run a primary until notified otherwise," Hansen said.

Markey raised the vast majority of her first quarter donations in the two weeks after her March 19 announcement that she'd vote for the Democratic health-reform plan after voting against an earlier version in November.

Hansen said the health-care vote was one of several factors that helped Gardner generate money at the end of the quarter, including the withdrawal of Republican congressional candidate Diggs Brown.

Gardner's campaign reported that 89 percent of its first quarter donations came from individuals and 11 percent from political committees. The campaign said they had 819 individual donors in the quarter, about a third of whom had not previously donated to the campaign.

For the campaign to date, the Gardner campaign has had about 2,000 donors, including 94 percent from Colorado, Hansen said.

By contrast, the Markey campaign said it received contributions from more than 4,900 donors in the first quarter alone. About three-fourths of Markey's first quarter donations from individuals came from Colorado.

Democrats have already begun to criticize Gardner for missing parts of the current state legislative session for campaign-related purposes.

Records from the House clerk show that Gardner has missed six days of the legislative session so far, the most absences of any House member. All of his absences came when he was attending campaign functions or fundraisers in Washington, D.C., or Denver.

"His state House district has sent us a message loud and clear over and over again, do whatever it takes to beat Betsy Markey," Hansen said.

You can find this article at http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20100414/NEWS01/4140336/Gardner-raises-record-in-House-challenge