Dem rakes in $4.6M more than opponent
Final fundraising figures show Lujan Grisham netted $1.57 million in last quarter to Pearce’s $430,000
Michelle Lujan Grisham has topped $9 million in fundraising for her bid to become New Mexico’s next governor, adding $1.57 million over the last month, including maximum allowed donations of $5,500 from actress, writer and political activist Jane Fonda and Patricia Collawn, chief executive of the state’s largest utility.
That’s a heftier sum than the month prior, when the Democratic congresswoman from Albuquerque took in $1.1 million, demonstrating her supporters have kept their checkbooks at the ready as Lujan Grisham has sought to solidify her lead in the polls in the final weeks.
Although Lujan Grisham has nearly doubled his fundraising total, Republican rival Steve Pearce entered October with roughly half a million more dollars in his campaign war chest, having spent judiciously over the course of the general election contest.
But the Hobbs congressman emptied the tank over the past four weeks, spending more than $1.56 million, according to his final pre-Election Day campaign finance report filed Thursday.
The Pearce expenditures: Primarily a barrage of media advertisements, which have both swiped at Lujan Grisham, linking her to former Gov. Bill Richardson and denigrating her tenure as a state Cabinet secretary, and extolled Pearce’s sunny message on international trade.
The Pearce campaign spent almost $1.2 million alone at Flexpoint Media, a New Albany, Ohio, media strategy firm, alongside other advertising purchases.
The ad campaign has underscored Pearce’s frenzied effort to overcome what has been a consistent gap in statewide polls. Republicans insist he has sufficiently dented the Albuquerque congresswoman’s image, emphasizing crime concerns heavily as he seeks to chip into her advantage in the state’s largest city. An Emerson College survey released earlier this week showed Lujan Grisham leading statewide by 9 percentage points with only 3 percent undecided.
The congresswoman spent $1.98 million in the October reporting period, $1.3 million of which went toward media buys.
Pearce has raised $4.7 million over the course of the campaign to succeed termlimited Republican Gov. Susana Martinez — a significant six-figure chunk of which comes from his congressional war chest, which he was allowed to transfer to his gubernatorial campaign after winning a court fight with the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office, arguing the transfer amounted to freedom of speech.
Lujan Grisham has reeled in more than $9.3 million. Contributions to her campaign in the latest period included maximum allowed donations from PepsiCo; the Memphis, Tenn., firefighters association; the political action committee of gun control advocate and former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords; Fonda; and Collawn, who leads PNM Resources, the parent company of Public Service Company of New Mexico.
Famed architect Frank Gehry contributed $2,000 to Lujan Grisham, as did CocaCola. St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch Cos. chipped in $2,500.
Over the final reporting period, Pearce raised an additional $430,000 with contributions from a number of oil and gas producers, including Exxon, which donated the maximum to both his campaign and that of Lujan Grisham. Also contributing to Pearce were the Clines Corners Operating Co., which gave $2,500, and the Pueblo of Laguna Development Corp., which gave $1,000.
Last month, in the midst of a spat over candidate photos, the Lujan Grisham campaign pointed out Pearce had received a $1,000 donation from a Deming pizza shop owner who was convicted of felony child abuse in 2014. The Pearce campaign said at the time it would donate the funds to a child abuse prevention charity.
The donation did not appear in the Pearce filings, which covered a period ending Oct. 30.
A spokesman for Pearce said the donation “went out yesterday [Oct. 31] with all the other end-of-month checks.”