OK, it makes a little more sense now that Butch Otter’s campaign says he’s hit the $2 million mark since the close of the last campaign finance filing period on Sept. 30. It’s not that Otter has made up the entire half-million-dollar difference between the latest report’s $1.5 million total and the higher figure in the past 10 days. It’s that the $1.5 million figure for total fundraising this year from the latest report, including just under half a million carried over from the year before, doesn’t count earlier amounts that Otter both raised and spent before this calendar year. When all that’s taken into account, Otter has raised a total of $1,932,212 for his run for governor, according to his campaign. That means that if he’s pushed that cumulative total past $2 million since Sept. 30, he’s added another $68,000 or so in the past 10 days – a lot, certainly, but not half a million.

Otter announced his run for governor way early – two years out, before he’d even taken his oath of office for his just-won current term in Congress. So he’s been fundraising for a while.

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