Mandel raises $1.3M in second quarter of year
State Treasurer Josh Mandel’s fundraising effort is lagging far behind incumbent U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown in Mandel’s attempt to unseat the senator.
At the same time, Mandel will face a little-known challenger in the Republican primary who reported surprisingly strong fundraising through the first four weeks of his campaign for the Senate seat.
Mandel’s main campaign committee, Citizens for Josh Mandel, raised $1.3 million in the second quarter of 2017.
That’s only half of the $2.6 million raised by Brown’s principal committee during the same period, a personal record for Brown in a nonelection year.
Mandel also is touting $400,000 raised by his Team Josh committee, but Brown’s campaign says it’s inconsistent to lump that in with the funds raised by his main committee. Mandel’s reported cash on hand for the 2018 race is $3.3 million, compared with the $6.7 million that Brown reported earlier this month.
In a fundraising letter, Mandel sounded the alarm to his supporters:
“That’s how much money my Democrat opponent, Sherrod Brown, already has in his Democrat war chest to slander my name and try to defeat our campaign,” it said. “We knew the Democrats were going to pour all of their resources into this race to defeat me, but I have to be honest, we didn’t think they would start so early.”
The Democrats aren’t the only problem Mandel faces.
Another Republican who would like to unseat Brown, Cleveland-area banker Mike Gibbons, announced Monday that he had raised $690,000 over the past month.
“The outpouring of support Mike has received over the past few weeks has been beyond anything we could have hoped for,” Mike Biundo, a senior adviser, said in a statement. “It is clear that conservatives across Ohio want a strong, no-nonsense voice to go to Washington and represent them, not another career politician who will do nothing to drain the D.C. swamp.”
Biundo is a former senior adviser to Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s presidential effort. He also was a key figure in the short-lived Republican campaigns for the White House by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and former Sen. Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania.
As it has in the past, the Brown campaign has accused Mandel of trying to artificially inflate his fundraising totals by including money raised by committees other than his principal political committee.
Team Josh is a joint committee, which means it consists of two or more entities that split the costs of fundraising and have to share the proceeds.
Despite lagging behind Brown, Mandel boasted in a statement to the press that his second-quarter numbers were strong.
“As we continue our mission to transfer the power from the politicians to the people, I’m inspired by the support we’re receiving from Ohioans across the state,” Mandel said.