CNN has the full details about the GOP candidates’ second quarter fundraising, now that all the numbers have been released. The lede notes that McCain has slightly more cash-on-hand than previously estimated — he’s got about $3.2 million, which is $2 million more than we were led to expect. This may be cold comfort to a campaign that’s continuing to shed staff, but it’s certainly worth noting.
One interesting exercise is to compare the numbers for the two second-tier candidates competing for the social conservative vote — Mike Huckabee and Sam Browback. Huckabee, who raised only half a million in the first quarter and began Q2 with just $300,000 cash-in-hand, had promised that his second quarter results would show marked improvement. They did improve, but not dramatically: this time, the Huckster raised $766,000 and spent $702,000, leaving him with $437,000 on hand. Brownback, by comparison, raised $1.45 million, though he spent even more than that, with a scorching burn rate of 126%. Despite all that spending, he ends the quarter with a little more cash-on-hand than Huckabee. All these numbers suggest that Brownback is simply getting more traction than his chief rival, though at this point the results of the Iowa straw poll will matter more to the two candidates than the details of their 2007 fundraising to date.
Something to say?
