Gibbons Out-Raises Boswell, Out-Paces Primary Opposition
- Monday, February 1, 2010, 4:30
- Iowa, News Center, Top Story
- 1,732 views
- 16 comments
The June 8th primary is only 128 days away. Just three months ago, retired airline pilot Dave Funk was the only Republican candidate in the race. As the weather turned cold, Republicans began to sense that seven-term incumbent Congressman Leonard Boswell was on the hot seat. Since then, a number of candidates have joined the race, but only one thus far has put together the necessary funds to take on Boswell – former Iowa State wrestling coach Jim Gibbons.
In the last quarter of 2009, Jim Gibbons out-raised Congressman Boswell and every one of his Republican primary opponents by a significant amount. Gibbons raised a stunning $207,310.00, which included $17,250.00 from political action committees such as the Iowa based American Future Fund, the PAC of Congressman Jim Jordan from Ohio, and former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert’s Keep Our Mission PAC.
Congressman Boswell raised $169,377.64 in the fourth quarter, but $133,400.00 came from political action committees. In fact, of the $582,210.78 that Boswell has raised in 2009, $461,350.00, or 79% of all the money he has raised has come from PACs. In the 2008 cycle, Boswell took over $1 million in contributions from PACs.
It is impressive when any challenger out-raises an incumbent congressman in a fundraising quarter, but for Gibbons to do it in his first quarter as a candidate and to do it in only six week’s time is incredible, especially considering that he did it in a crowed primary field. While Gibbons was able to out-raise Boswell, his primary opponents didn’t come anywhere close to the numbers that Boswell and Gibbons posted.
State Senator Brad Zaun raised $30,600.00, and Dave Funk raised $22,685.00 in the last quarter of 2009. Zaun’s campaign now must raise a substantial amount of money in the first quarter of 2010 in order to compete with Gibbons. While Gibbons has raised the most money, Zaun has been the candidate who seems to be spending the most money early on. Zaun’s campaign has done a round of robo calls, printed placards, produced and aired a TV ad, and TheIowaRepublican.com has been told that he has a poll in the field.
Retired airline pilot Dave Funk, the candidate who has been in the race the longest, has found it difficult to raise funds for his campaign. Since launching his campaign in August, Funk has raised just $46,312.00. In comparison to Zaun and Gibbons, Funk is not well known and has failed to capitalize on the time in which he was the only candidate in the race.
Gibbons initial fundraising push now puts him in a great position over Zaun and Funk with just over four months until the primary. Since joining the race in mid-November, Gibbons and Zaun have been in a contest to establish their respective campaigns as the best positioned to take on Leonard Boswell in the fall. Thus far, Gibbons has the advantage.
Gibbons announced his campaign on November 19th. On the same day, State Senator Brad Zaun told Congressional Quarterly, “My intentions are to run against Leonard Boswell.” Zaun made it official just 15 days later when he announced his campaign from his mom’s hardware store on the south side of Des Moines. Just a few days after Gibbons and Zaun entered the race, national prognosticators quickly changed the rating of the race in Iowa’s 3rd district from “safe democratic” to the more competitive classification of “democrat favored.”
While Gibbons has a almost a seven to one money advantage over his closest competitor, Zaun does boast a 20 year record of community service which started as a member of the city council in Urbandale and continues today in the Iowa State Senate. Zaun brings a clear advantage to his congressional campaign; he is the most known and politically connected candidate in the race. Zaun also already represents a solid Republican district in Polk County, giving him a strong base of support as he builds his campaign.
Gibbons’ primary opponents now must find a way to raise the necessary funds to be competitive with him. While Gibbons isn’t necessarily well known across the district, he already has the necessary funds to run a competitive campaign, and his opponents don’t. Even if Funk or Zaun raised $1000 everyday between now and the primary, they still wouldn’t match what Gibbons currently has in his campaign account.
Running for Congress is a lot different than running for the state legislature or another local office. Congressional campaigns need enough financial resources to run protracted TV and radio advertising campaigns and direct mail. Only one Republican candidate can currently run that type of campaign – Jim Gibbons.
Iowa Congressional Fundraising Totals
1. Jim Gibbons: $207,310.00
2. Bruce Braley: $ 172,670.11
3. Leonard Boswell: $ 169,377.64
4. Steve King: $ 133,291.00
5. Tom Latham: $ 97,625.00
6. Dave Loebsack: $94,479.27
7. Steve Rathje: $ 59,130.00
8. Brad Zaun: $30,600.00
9. Dave Funk: $22,685.00
10. Miller-Meeks: $20,660.15
11. Chrisopher Reed: $2,833.75
About the Author
Craig Robinson has written 501 stories on this site.
Craig Robinson serves as the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheIowaRepublican.com. Prior to founding Iowa's largest conservative news site, Robinson served as the Political Director of the Republican Party of Iowa during the 2008 Iowa Caucuses. In that capacity, Robinson planned and organized the largest political event in 2007, the Iowa Straw Poll, in Ames, Iowa. Robinson also organized the 2008 Republican caucuses in Iowa, and was later dispatched to Nevada to help with the caucuses there. Robinson cut his teeth in Iowa politics during the 2000 caucus campaign of businessman Steve Forbes and has been involved with most major campaigns in the state since then. His extensive political background and rolodex give him a unique perspective from which to monitor the political pulse of Iowa.
16 Comments on “Gibbons Out-Raises Boswell, Out-Paces Primary Opposition”
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the rest of the story……..will be the Gibbons supporters (and some rookie bloggers) crowing about the amount of money Gibbons has raised over the late to the campaign Iowa Senator Brad Zaun, who only announced his campaign a couple of weeks before the holidays.
First of all…let’s give some credit to Gibbons…he is good at raising money as I have mentioned many times before, and we do know according to Register reports he was considering entering the race last summer and telling his clients in November for three weeks that he was leaving as he was in the race…so Gibbons knew either in July or in October he was in the race, and could get the infrastructure going to raise money months ahead of Zaun….
We don’t know how much Zaun raised from the big fundraiser at the end of the reporting period or what he has available in Jaunuary so it is anyone’s guess what is available to the Zaun campaign at the end ol January…
About $51,000 of Gibbons funds will be restricted (meaning they can’t be used against Zaun in a primary), and about $130,000 came from outside the 3rd district, meaning the vast majority of Gibbons funds came from people and PAC’s that cant even vote for him.
This simply shows that even with the big money establishment like Rastetter, Ruan, Kirke, Elwell house parties, Nick Ryan and others supporting the Gibbons campaign, it looks like they will have a lot of work to do to get the grassroots 3rd district voter to consider their candidate. Gibbons has already introduced some strange proposals that have been detailed on many blogs…. which have caused many voters to question his issue ideas.
The Deace show last week had a good discussion on how the establishment that needs big government spending (ethanol subsidies and pro-casino policies) will be supporting Gibbons and the pro-business, less government, less government spending conservatives will be supporting Zaun.
Bottom line, people want Boswell out of office, and in the general election Republicans will be in the victory column.
Very impressive! We need someone that can send Boswell back home, and it’s looking more and more like Gibbons is the man to do it.
Whats not impressive is that Jim Gibbons seems to have more addresses than donors and doesn’t really live in the district. So why not just start out clean instead with a donor list that looks like everyone but 3rd district voters maybe he thinks the primary has a FOR SALE sign on it!
Rees for Congress reports over $50,000 cash on hand!
Read more at http://www.markrees4congress.com/rees-for-congress-reports-over-50000-cash-on-hand
We are all glad that Mark Rees has had a successful personal life due to the free-market. However putting 50,000 of you own personal dollars doesn’t show support in the district. We also don’t need another Boswell with an R in front of his name representing us. I took a look at Rees website and see that he wants to put global warming taxes on our economy. Sorry we don’t need another RINO or Dem to reach across and compromise with Nancy!
What is convenently not mentioned in the article is over $36,000 of the funds contributed to Gibbon’s campaign were by the (not even IN the 3rd district) largest ethanol producer in Iowa, and associated entities.
You don’t suppose someone still needs those big government subsidies and knows Zaun is for less government and less spending???
It could not be clearer…..someone who LOVES big government is trying to buy a seat.
Is there any residency requirement for Congressional elections? It’s my understanding Gibbons lives in Boone County.
I don’t know what’s more impressive, Gibbon’s fundraising numbers or the fact that Mirage has time to get to work, read the blogs, check email, get coffee for Zaun, then get back to his desk and bust out that analysis. Well done.
Here’s to hoping Funk will close shop and endorse Gibbons.
There is a slogan in Iowa Character counts and being that as Rorkes Drift pointed out Gibbons doesn’t really live in the Third District and he seems to have fabricated some address in the district. It’s pretty inconvenient when candidates try to make you run on something other than a celebrity.
I think the only endorsements Gibbons seems to be getting or is qualified for are that of Doug Gross and Jim Leach. ? Didn’t Leach endorse Obama too great track record?
According to Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution, the only qualifications as far as residency goes for running for congress is that they have to be a resident of the state. Gibbons probably changed his residency for one of two reasons 1) so that his opponents could not try to use that against him, or 2) because he wanted to vote for himself. If it was the first…obviously it has not worked well for him.
IIRC, Boswell had to move in order to retain his seat. However, I don’t think “Bahama Tom” has spent much time in Cumming lately.
I don’t think there was a Constitutional question of whether or not he could do that, since if there was I’m sure Zaun and Funk would have had the mind to bring it up. It was more motive and the whole question of whether he actually moved into the district or just pulled out the carpet bag and set up a shop. Also using the argument that Boswell and Harkin did it seems rather thin. But if he wants to be compared with them I guess HI HO HI HO off to the third district Jim go.
Actually my comment was addressing the earlier question by Rorkes Drift on whether there is any residency requirement for Congressional elections.
Thanks Truth. That was my question. I thought there was a residency requirement, but did not realize it was not district specific. I don’t know how it plays that he is not from the 3rd district. I’m not thrilled about it but I suppose I could look past it if he is the niminee. I am curious regarding his support. Frankly, I haven’t heard a thing about the guy since he stepped down as ISU’s werstling coach. What is it about him that has resulted in such good fundraising totals? Are his donors all ISU wrestling fans? Are they all former wrestlers?
Your Welcome Rorkes. And personally, I don’t see a problem with the fact that he’s not from the 3rd district. If he feels like he can help our state by getting an incumbant who is in lockstep with Nancy Pelosi out of office, then good for him. He lives in Boone county if I’m not mistaken, and that borders Polk county and the 3rd district. It’s not like he’s coming from the other side of the state, that I would have a problem with. Since he is so close to the 3rd district, I see the whole thing as irrelevent. If he feels like he can do the job to get Boswell out of office, then he should have the chance. I can’t see any alterior motives he might have…
I just want Boswell out of office, and I think the more variety of canidates we have to get behind, the more support we will have as a party when the nominee is selected.
Look at the data. Think of Jim Gibbons as a corporation. District three Iowans, four months before the primary, are already a minority shareholder. Way to go Jimmy, trying to relive the glory days!