In race to replace McMorris Rodgers, fundraising shows some campaigns gaining, others fizzling

Republican Spokane County Treasurer Michael Baumgartner continues to have a wide lead in campaign money over the other 10 candidates running for Congress in Eastern Washington.

But some other candidates, including Democrat OB-GYN Bernadine Bank, Republican state Rep. Jacquelin Maycumber and GOP Ferry County Commissioner Brian Dansel, also brought in impressive hauls in the second quarter of fundraising.

Ballots for the August primary began arriving to registered voters Wednesday.

The fundraising data released Monday, provides early signs of which campaigns are gaining momentum, losing it, or, in a few cases, are almost certainly not able to compete. Voters are only now getting the chance to weigh in on which two people should compete in November, but donors have been speaking with their wallets since at least February.

The data also shows that the race for the 5th Congressional District is not getting the attention or cash of races considered more competitive. In Washington’s closely watched southeastern 3rd Congressional District, freshman Democratic incumbent Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has raised $2.2 million, raising her cash reserved to $4 million, and the National Republican Congressional Committee has announced it will buy ads targeting her in her rematch against Republican Joe Kent.

Despite the many candidates running in Eastern Washington this year, the race has not captured such national attention or campaign cash. The 11 contenders have collectively raised less than $1.7 million.

Several Democratic candidates have pointed to Perez’ surprise victory in 2022, flipping the seat from Republican control, to demonstrate that they shouldn’t be written off in the reliably Republican Eastern Washington district, though the dynamics of Perez’ 2022 primary were different with fewer candidates and tighter historical margins.

Raising more money doesn’t necessarily win elections, as conservatives running for various positions in the liberal leaning city of Spokane were reminded last year. But candidates have needed sizable sums to reach voters in the sprawling 5th Congressional District, which spans Eastern Washington from the Canadian border to Oregon, particularly as none of them has the kind of name recognition as outgoing incumbent Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

An inability to raise significant funds despite months of campaigning may sink the prospects of a number of candidates, such as Spokane City Councilman Jonathan Bingle, who has campaigned on a theme of “American Revival” and has raised around $20,000 since announcing a bid in February. His fundraising momentum is also slowing, with less than $2,900 coming in the last three months.

Democrat Kootenai County Deputy Prosecutor Matthew Welde has fared little better, raising less than $24,000 since joining the race. His second quarter fundraising slowed considerably, with just $7,000 raised in the last three months.

That’s still a good deal more than has been raised by Democrat Bobbi Bennett-Wolcott, a registered nurse and clinical assistant professor at Washington State University. She’s brought in about $8,200 since entering the race at the last possible minute, during the May filing week, telling The Spokesman-Review that she was running a purely “grassroots campaign” focused on reaching voters directly. Most of her campaign cash, was donated or loaned by Bennett-Wolcott to her own campaign, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

It’s unclear how much, if anything, has been raised by the campaigns of Republicans Rick Valentine Flynn and Rene Holaday since they jumped into the race, as they have not reported to the FEC. Candidates do not have to file their donations with the FEC unless they raise or spend more than $5,000; Flynn wrote in an email that he has “no interest in being beholden to corporate donors,” and had not yet raised more than $5,000. Corporations cannot legally donate directly to candidates for federal office, though they can do so through separate political action committees, whose influence has been mostly absent from the race.

Holaday, whose campaign signs are increasingly common in the Spokane-area, did not respond to a request for comment.

The Spokesman-Review also cannot independently confirm how much money Democrat Ann Marie Danimus has raised last quarter, as she has not filed her quarterly report with the FEC. In a brief interview, Danimus said that a number of issues had delayed her reporting for a few days, but estimated that she had raised around $35,000 since April. Danimus was issued a warning in 2022 by the state Public Disclosure Commission, which regulates campaign spending for state campaigns, for failing to file fundraising reports on time during an unsuccessful 2020 state Senate race.

Fundraising during the second quarter – April through the end of June – lagged behind their initial takings before the end of March for most candidates, even though many were only in the race for a matter of weeks before that initial deadline came. While Spokane County Treasurer Michael Baumgartner, a Republican, brought in more in the second quarter than anyone else and remains in a financially dominant position, his momentum did slow noticeably, with $213,000 raised in the second quarter relative to the $400,000 he raised in the first five weeks of his campaign.

Former diplomat Carmela Conroy, a Democrat who boasts the most substantial slate of endorsements by the Democratic Party and politicians, also had her donations slow somewhat in the last three months. Her campaign brought in around $71,000 since the beginning of April, down from $81,000 the previous quarter.

This trajectory isn’t unusual, however, noted Jim Hedemark, a Spokane political consultant who has worked on Republican, Democratic and nonpartisan political campaigns and advised Bingle’s congressional campaign during its initial rollout. He currently consults for Michael Schmidt, who is running for the state Legislature.

Candidates tend to get some of their best fundraising hauls at the beginning of their campaigns as they capitalize on their connections, with those initial takings only eclipsed in the final few months before the November general, he said.

McMorris Rodgers’ late departure from the race put additional strain on campaigns to quickly raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, Hedemark noted. Outside of the three early candidates, the pressure “has been on these candidates to absolutely pull a rabbit out of the hat,” he said.

A few candidates have managed to pick up the fundraising pace in recent months.

Dr. Bernadine Bank, a Democrat, and two Republicans, Dansel and Maycumber, raised more in the last three months than they had previously.

Maycumber had expected this kind of increase, she told The Spokesman-Review in April, because while she announced her candidacy in mid-February, she said she didn’t begin campaigning in earnest until the Legislature finished its session in March. She is also the only candidate to significantly benefit from political action committee money, raising $57,000 since April from a slew of organizations including several labor unions. Maycumber was the only Republican running for Congress in Washington to have received an endorsement from the Washington State Labor Council, which also endorsed Conroy for the seat.

In a Tuesday fundraising email, Baumgartner’s campaign wrote that “Far left special interests are pouring money into the race,” pointing to union support for Maycumber and to a far lesser extent Conroy, who received $5,000 on June 30 from the United Food and Commercial Workers International PAC.

Maycumber has also received financial support from conservative-aligned organizations, such as the Spokane Police Guild and the Gun Owners of America PAC.

Bank saw a more significant second-quarter bump over her previous fundraising, bringing in more than all of her Democratic rivals combined and overtaking Conroy and Danimus in overall fundraising for the first time since entering the race.

“There’s no denying that Bank has had a very productive second quarter,” Hedemark said.

But no candidate saw a bigger shift in momentum than Dansel. While the $85,000 he brought in since April still falls short of the ability of Maycumber and particularly Baumgartner to raise campaign cash, it’s a marked improvement over his near bottom-of-the-pack fundraising in the first quarter. This shift correlates with Dansel’s endorsements by the Spokane County GOP in June and the state GOP in April. The state party donated $5,000 to Dansel after that nod.

“To go from basically a school-board-race level fundraising in quarter one to a very aggressive quarter two, something is happening in this campaign that is pretty impressive,” Hedemark said.