The race for the Evanston Township High School board has become the most expensive local election campaign this year, followed by the race for 1st Ward alderman.
Today is the first day of a two-week period for candidates to update their quarterly campaign finance reports with the state board of elections, but since that filing period doesn’t end until after the election, this seems like a good moment to look at the state of the race for campaign cash.
Contributions of $1,000 or more have to be reported individually, ahead of the quarterly filings required for all donations, so reports of those large gifts are more up to date.
District 202 School Board
In the eight-way race for four seats on the Evanston Township High School board, candidates have reported raising a total of more than $21,000 so far. Here’s the breakdown by candidate:
- Elena Garcia Ansani — Started with $10 on hand and has no additional contributions reported so far.
- Andrew Bezaitis — Started with $0 on hand and has reported contributions of $2,000 so far.
- Bill Geiger — Started with $0 on hand and has reported contributions of $4,500 so far.
- Deborah Graham — Started with $0 on hand and has reported no contributions so far.
- Doug Holt — Started with $0 on hand when he formed his committee in mid-December, but had raised a total of $5,999 by the end of that month. No contributions reported since.
- Gretchen Livingston — Started with $2,387 on hand and has reported no additional contributions so far.
- Casey Miller — Started with $2,300 on hand and reports contributing an additional $2,000 to his own campaign so far.
- Pat Savage-Williams — Started with $1,900 on hand and has reported no additional contributions yet.
1st Ward
Challenger Ed Tivador reports raising more money so far than incumbent Judy Fiske.
Tivador reported $2,474 on hand when he created his campaign committee in late January and has received a total of $6,500 in contributions of $1,000 or more.
Fiske reported just $105 on hand at the end of last year and has since reported $3,000 in contributions of $1,000 or more.
5th Ward
Challenger Carlis Sutton reported having $200 on hand when he formed his campaign committee at the end of January and incumbent Delores Holmes reported no funds on hand when she set up her committee in mid-February.
Neither has reported any additional contributions so far.
6th Ward
After spending nearly $21,000 battling each other for the job four years ago, incumbent Mark Tendam and challenger Mark Sloane have not reported any fundraising yet this time around.
Tendam reported having nothing in his campaign kitty at the start of this year’s campaign. Sloane said he had $1,765 on hand.
Township Supervisor
In the race for township supervisor, Gary Gaspard, the only candidate to file his first-quarter fundraising report early, has raised $3,940 from 45 supporters who gave contributions as small as $20 and none larger than $300 — for an average contribution size of $88.
His opponent, Keith Banks, reported having $100 on hand when he formed his campaign committee in late January and has reported no additional contributions so far.
All these numbers are expected to change as more candidates file their first quarter campaign finance reports.