Slow news day, with pretty much nothing cooking on the elections front. So instead of a contribution of the day, here’s a look at the current state of funding in the city attorney’s race.
So far, incumbent Tom Carr and challenger Pete Holmes have raised almost exactly the same amount of money: Carr has just over $42,000; Holmes, just over $41,000. Both men also have spent almost all they’ve raised: Carr has about $11,000 in the bank to Holmes’ $9,900. That means either that they’ll have to do a big fundraising push in the final month and a half of the campaign, or that this is going to be a very low-budget city attorney election. In 2001, the last time there was a contested city attorney election, both Carr and his opponent, Edsonya Charles, raised around $75,000 each. It’s hard to see Carr or Holmes running a similar campaign to those in 2001 without raising at least $100,000.
What will it mean if they don’t? My guess is that a low-budget election campaign—with minimal mail and yard signs and little to no TV—will benefit incumbent Carr over Holmes, whom only the hardest-core political junkies, nightlife advocates, and open-government activists have heard of at this point. On the other hand, anti-Nickels oust-the-incumbents sentiment could trump lack of familiarity with the challenger—and the less money Carr has the make his case, the less reason people may see to keep him in office for a third term.
