Feda Morton filed her campaign finance report yesterday which can be seen here. Feda is only the second of the seven candidates to release details of her fund raising for the final quarter of last year. Robert Hurt announced his total about two weeks ago but has not filed his official report therefore we have no details as to where the money has come from.
As anyone knows who is paying attention it is going to be an expensive race, this is unfortunate and is why a convention would have been better for everyone. The cost of this seven way battle will in the end be prohibitive to some of the candidates. After looking at Ms. Morton’s report it appears that unless something changes soon she may be one of the ones affected. Her report shows that she only has $2,419 on hand with debt of $14,480, $7,000 of this debt is owed to the candidate but the other portion is for consulting fees and other services. This looks like a difficult situation for Feda.
I honestly hate to see Ms. Morton drop out of the race; she brings an honesty and feistiness that is needed. If she hopes to remain in the race she will need to bring in more cash as soon as possible. If for some reason she does decide that the situation cannot be remedied I would love to see her take on the challenge of running for the 5th District GOP Chair. If she chose to put her hat in the ring for this position I would be willing to bet that she would have the support of most of the tea parties throughout the district. If she is unable to serve the district in Washington we could certainly use her services on a more local level.
13 Comments
It looks like she still took in more money than Verga (the only other candidate up-to-date):
$14,300 for Feda
$11,025 for Verga
If Verga wasn’t self-funding, would we be talking about him dropping out?
I dont have a problem with Verga’s self financing. A candidate can do what they want with their own money. However, i would like to see him raise more money within the district so far, and i am not an expert on these reports, but it appears that he has only raised $6,250 from the district.
BRG, Do you have a problem with Bill Stanley as 5th district chairman? Bill has done a wonderful job in Franklin County.
I don’t have a problem with Stanley, I have heard good things about him but have not met him personally. He would be a big step up from Tucker.
Washington Post and BearingDrift are reporting that McKelvey loaned his campaign $500,000!!!
It appears Feda needs to call it quits pretty soon. Sad but true. McKelvey has thrown dwon the gauntlet to Verga over who will br the richest guy with no record and very few contributors. I’ll bet McPadden and Ferrin will have a poor reports also with Boyd raising in the 150K area and a good number of supporters. Hurt’s 392K and 450 donors looks better all the time.
yes, read that at Bearing Drift. interesting.
As I stated over at Bearing Drift, loaning oneself massive amounts of money does not make one a frontrunner. The metrics we should be looking at are grassroots organizing and number of donors. Feda is doing just fine in those categories. We are in this race to win it, and we will have more than enough funds to carry on until June and win this nomination.
Disclaimer: As should be evident from the above post, I am now working for the Morton campaign.
Sam,
Feda sadly does not have a large donor base at all. Look at her total number and despite a letter sent out for her by Mike Farris, she just hasn’t been able to get it done. Having turned over a number of campaign managers so far also speaks volumes.
I hear what you’re saying, but a lot can happen in the 28 days since the end of the reporting period. Could we be in a better position? Absolutely. Everybody can always be in a better position. But we are very okay with the position we’re in at the moment, and we’re very excited about the fundraising opportunities we have moving forward.
Another would be candidate recently wrote that
“(T)his race cannot be reduced to who can raise the most money or even who has the biggest name recognition.” If it were, than six of the seven candidates in the race now should just give all their hard earned campaign money and support to the one who has already raised the most: Senator Hurt and be done with it. For many 5th distict voters as well as the other six candidates, however, I feel to do so at this point out of the starting blocks would be anathema.
How many donors have given money to each candidate, on the other hand, is possibly a much more telling statistic at this point?
I think finances are just one of many benchmarks, grassroots organization and messaging however are paramount and in this department Feda clearly has a strong team and message.Having said that I assure you here fundraising numbers this next quarter are going to look much stronger.
Let us too not forget a little Virginia history about another “Fiesty” Lady from the first district, JoAnne Davis who in the 2000 GOP primary bested a self financed millionaire with the endorsement of a sitting Governor and another hard hitting veteran of politics with a fraction of the money they had.
Keep an eye on Feda….she has just begun to fight!
While I think Morton has the potential to be a good CD Chair for the 5th I think it would be against the interests of the 5th as a whole for someone to challenge Bill Stanley at this point. The 5th is divided greatly at this point and once the primary is over the 5th GOP needs an experienced leader who can re-unite the party. Bill Stanley is that person. A nasty, divided race for Chair would be counterproductive.
I agree with William. Bill Stanley can/will do wonders for the 5th.