Lamont gives $8.2M

Has contributed $12.7M to own campaign; Stefanowski has $747K left

Ned Lamont has raised the ante in the race for governor.

The former cable-TV executive turned investor put another $8.2 million into his Democratic campaign, according to the latest filings with the State Elections Enforcement Commission that show he has poured a total of more than $12.7 million of his personal wealth into the bid.

The quarterly report, filed just before the deadline late Wednesday, indicates that Lamont has $5.5 million available for the last month of the campaign.

He wrote personal checks for $3.6 million on Sept. 4, followed by $4.6 million on Sept. 28.

In total, Lamont has raised $12,753.745. In the quarter — July, August and September — Lamont’s campaign received more than $258,000 from individual contributors.

Lamont is the great-grandson of a wealthy Wall Street banker, and his wife, Annie Lamont, is a high-performing hedge fund executive.

In 2006, when he won the

Democratic U.S. Senate primary over Joe Lieberman, but lost the general election, Lamont spent $3.7 million, according to FollowTheMoney.org. Lamont spent $9.6 million in his losing primary run for governor in 2010.

Lamont’s Republican opponent this year, Bob Stefanowski of Madison, raised $1.5 million during the quarter, for a campaign total of $5 million. He has paid out nearly $4.3 million, with only $747,520 available for the last month of the campaign.

During the quarter, Stefanowski raised a million dollars from individual contributors.

“Unlike Ned Lamont, Stefanowski did not inherit tens of millions of dollars with which he can attempt to buy the governorship,” said Kendall Marr, the GOP candidate’s campaign spokesman. “Bob is humbled to have earned the support of over 2000 concerned voters who have generously supported his campaign so far.”

While his public appearances on the campaign have been very few outside of a few debates and small forums, Stefanowski’s filings indicates a daily attempt over the last three months to raise money. Running outside the state’s voluntary public-finance program, Stefanowski got on TV in January with a series of ads that raised his name recognition and won him the GOP primary in August.

The campaign-finance filings indicate that Stefanowski has been scrambling for cash. He has held at least 22 fundraising events throughout the state, including three in Greenwich, including one at the exclusive Belle Haven Club, which the campaign rented for nearly $2,000. Another fundraising luncheon was held on Central Park South in New York.

Stefanowski also loaned his campaign an additional $400,000, bringing the total to $2.65 million in personal funds for which the business consultant and former corporate executive is eligible to seek reimbursement. In addition, Change PAC, a political action committee linked to the Republican Governors Association, has raised a million dollars that is being used to attack Lamont in TV ads.

Lamont’s contributions to his campaign, however, are not reimbursable.

Oz Griebel, the unaffiliated candidate for governor who is recent days began a radio-advertising effort, has loaned his campaign an additional $76,000, according to the latest quarterly reports Wednesday posted by the SEEC.

Griebel, the former director of the MetroHartford Alliance, wrote five checks totaling the $76,000, including $30,000 on July 31. Most recently, Griebel, who on Wednesday was shown to have 11 percent support among voters in the latest Quinnipiac University Poll, wrote a $15,000 check on Sept. 28.

During the campaign, Griebel has loaned his effort $143,500 of the total $387,000 raised. It’s a fraction of what Lamont and Stefanowski have invested. With less than a month before the election, Griebel has $39,000 left, the reports indicate.