Bloomington mayoral candidate Thomson with big early lead in money raised, spent
Correction: This post has been updated to correct the spelling of Henke's name.
Mayoral candidate Kerry Thomson so far has outraised and outspent her two primary opponents, Susan Sandberg and Don Griffin Jr., by a margin of nearly 2:1 — combined.
According to campaign finance reports, Thomson last year raised nearly $93,000, compared to about $26,000 for Griffin and $25,000 for Sandberg.
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Thompson, through Dec. 31 of last year, also had spent more than $18,000 on her campaign, compared to just under $9,000 for Sandberg and $328.03 for Griffin. Thomson had nearly $75,000 remaining, compared to about $26,000 for Griffin and roughly $16,000 for Sandberg.
Candidates recently filed pre-election campaign finance reports, which provide voters with information about how much money candidates have raised, where that money comes from and how they're spending it. An IU professor has said research generally points to a relationship between spending money and gaining votes, though the details of that relationship are not quite clear.
The most recent filings covered the entire last year. Candidates have to file a campaign finance pre-primary report by April 14. That report will cover money raised and spent from Jan. 1 to April 7. The primary election will be on May 2.
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Thomson, in the most recent report, had 28 donations of at least $1,000, while Griffin had eight and Sandberg had five. Thomson had two donations of $10,000, which by themselves nearly equaled Griffin and Sandberg’s total haul last year.
The candidates’ donors of at least $1,000 are below. Donors have a Bloomington address unless noted otherwise.
Sandberg
Sheryl and Thomas Schwandt, $2,000
Jon Lawrence, Janice Sorby, $5,000
Betty Nagle, $1,000
Chris Sturbaum, $1,000
Paul Ash, $1,000
Griffin
Pavilion Properties Management LLC, $1,000
Janice Wiggins, $1,000
Fred Schultz, $1,000
Charlie Nelms, $1,000
Daniel Gupta, $1,000
Marshella Griffin, Los Angeles, $10,025
Mary Friedman, $1,000
Morris Erickson, $2,500
Thomson
Blackwell Contractors, $2,500
Ellen Wingard, Chilmark, Massachusetts, $6,000
Susan West, $1,000
Barney Thomson, Vienna, Virginia, $1,000
Emily Styron, Zionsville, Indiana, $2,500
Eric Stolberg, $1,000
Aaron Stolberg, $1,000
Winston Shindell, $1,000
Babak Seradjeh, $1,049
Meredith Rogers, $10,000
John Richardson, $1,049
Jeff Richardson, $1,000
Lydia Murray, Chicago, $1,000
Patrick Murphy, $1,049
Michael May, $10,000
Tony Moravec, Columbus, Indiana, $1,000
George Mankowski, $1,000
Elliot Lewis $2,500
Jeffrey Jones, $2,500
Tim Henke, $1,500
Tim Hanson, $1,500
Diane Girvin, Camden, Connecticut, $1,000
J. Thomas Forbes, $1,000
Sheri Fella, $3,981
Tim Ellis, $3,000
Elizabeth Ellis, $2,000
Sarah Booher, $1,069
Suzanne Aquila, $1,000
Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington mayoral candidate Thomson with big early lead in money raised