New campaign finance reports from Evanston’s mayoral candidates filed with the state board of elections show just how much money went into this year’s campaign.
Mayor-elect Steve Hagerty’s campaign raised by far the most money — with the largest amount coming from the candidate himself. But Hagerty also raised the largest amount from other people.
Total funds raised ranged from $230,262 for Hagerty’s winning campaign, to a low of $3,357 for the fifth-place finisher in the mayoral primary, Gary Gaspard.
The share of all the money each candidate raised that came from his own pocket ranged from a low of 12 percent for the third-place finisher in the primary, Brian Miller, to a high of 72 percent for the fourth-place finisher in the primary, Jeff Smith.
The candidate’s-own-funds calculation for Hagerty includes in-kind contributions from the business he owns and for Smith they include transfers from a committee he formed for a prior election campaign.
Smith treated money he gave to his own campaign as a contribution. The other candidates treated their money as loans, so there’s at least a remote possibility they might be at least partially repaid from future campaign contributions for others.
Except for Mark Tendam, who finished second in the primary and came within one percentage point of the winner in the general election, the candidates reported that as of March 31, they had spent almost all the money they’d raised. Tendam reported having $9,412.44 on hand, Smith reported $4,517. Miller said he had $2391.43 left over. Hagerty reported just $587.28 in cash. Gaspard said he had a zero balance.
The candidates have to report contributions or loans of $1,000 or more within two days after they’re received. Hagerty has reported loaning his campaign $17,000 since the first quarter ended and Tendam reported loaning his campaign $2,000 just before the April 4 election. Those amounts are included in the funds raised totals, but aren’t reflected in the March 31 cash on hand numbers.
If you’re so inclined, you can dig into the reports yourself on the Illinois Board of Elections website.
Looks like several candidates
Looks like several candidates have not filed their reports (e.g. Robin Simmons, Alex Block) and Tendam has a lot of missing information. What’s the penalty for failure to report?
Shocked more folks aren’t
Shocked more folks aren’t discussing this given the extremely slim margin of victory and drastically disproportionate campaign spending.
I voted for the guy
that didn’t have ties to Northwestern University… because i don’t want the other guy to get richer because of his business ties with said University.
Than I guess we can’t vote for…
In same light, I guess you would not vote for anyone who worked for a hospital, bank, ran a business, charity/social program [even they might try to get funds channeled to their group], utility, lawyer, teacher, political organization, social movement and on and on. I.e. anyone who worked or knew anything about anything. To qualify, “must have never gone to school, worked, read a book” ?