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The race to governor hinges on the biggest bag of cash

Eye on State Government

Tim Skubick

Three point five million. Three point two million. Two point three million. One point zero six million.

Nope. This is not a column about a famous trial lawyer family announcing how much they have won in various cases. Sorry Mark.

Rather it’s a fascinating peek at how much money eight candidates running for governor siphoned into their cash accounts as of the latest filing deadline of July 20.

The hands-down winner by far is Congressman John James but his detractors will quickly note that $5 million of his cash haul came from two citizens with the last name DeVos. Take them out of the equation and he’s pretty much near the rest of the pack. But hey, he’s not complaining. Take that out of the equation and this take was $2.2 million however $750 thou came from the transfer from a previous campaign account.

Right behind him is Secretary of State, Democratic front-runner Jocelyn, who attracted cash from 27,000 donors including 10% from California where she has, so far, staged not one or two fundraisers but a whopping 23! Two more visits to the Golden State and they might try to collect their non-resident income tax. Her intake was $3.5 million. But there is a tiny asterisk on her number that smudges the headline just a tad. $1.1 million was also from a previous SOS fund. Hence her real number is $2.4 mil.

She was basking in the warmth of those headlines, but not for long. Within hours of her release, a headline-grabbing guy by the name of Mike Duggan caught everyone’s attention when he reported raising $3.2 million.

The kicker is his long shot bid to be the first Independent candidate elected governor raised that tidy amount in less than six months.

Oh. My.

This magically transformed his no-it-can’t-be-done image into an instant force to be reckoned with in this wide open race.

True, Ms. Benson had 27,206 donors to her kitty and the Mayor of Detroit had only 1,643, but when the pundits weight that number against the dollar amounts in what period of time, many in this town will say the win, for now, goes to him.

Once the dust settled from that sort of game-changing development, the rest of the field released their numbers.

The fireball candidate from Genesee County and its local sheriff listed just over one million raked in from 2,155 donors, including 53% in state. But buried in the fine print was this. Part of his cache came from the transfer of $182,000 from his sheriff campaign coffers into his governor account. In other words, that money was not from folks clamoring to join his current crusade but from previous donors who wanted him to be the top cop.

Then there is Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II who is just a heart beat away from being governor but miles away from raising the kind of largess he needs to replace his current boss. He took in $768,000 from more donors than Mr. Duggan had. The L.G.’s number was just over 10,000 but still under the 27,000 of Ms. Benson.

Over on the GOP side, after all the other candidates dusted themselves off from the $5 million reported by front-runner Mr. James, each tried to find a spin to show they are still in the game.

The farmer turned gov. candidate Aric Nesbitt took to the corn crib $2.3 million from over 1,800 supporters but $364,000 of the corn was from a previous campaign account and, like Ms. Swanson, that takes some of the edge off the $2.3 million dollar figure.

Former GOP state attorney general and defeated candidate for governor in 2010, Mike Cox wrote himself a check for $500,000 to make up part of the $2.2 million he says he raised this quarter. That was on top of the one million of his own money he used as seed cash to get his campaign off the ground earlier.

Given all this, somebody has suggested a theme song for all those who have to put the arm on folks to run. The lyrics go, “the best things in life are free, but you can give them to the birds and bees. I need money. That’s what I want.”

Thank you Barrett Strong on the Motown label for that.

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