By Adam Pagnucco.
Part One described the methodology of this series, which is hampered by the quality problems in data published by the State Board of Elections (SBE). Today let’s start with receipts received by council candidates.
The chart below shows receipts by council at-large candidates who had filed reports through January 14. This data comes from contribution spreadsheet downloads because the report summary sheets are sometimes inaccurate.
Scott Goldberg is the runaway leader here, but there is an important caveat. Look at the light green bar, which contains $156,286. That refers to the public matching funds that the county has already distributed to his campaign. Several other candidates applied for matching funds but had not yet received them by January 14. I would like to include those applications in this data, but there are two problems. First, the summary sheets are sometimes inaccurate. Second, when I asked the campaigns to tell me the amounts for which they replied, some answered me and others did not. This created an intolerable apples and oranges problem so I left the information out entirely.
Do you see how serious the SBE data issues are? In nearly 20 years of crunching this kind of data, I have never seen quality issues this serious.
In any event, Goldberg is still the leader even when matching funds are excluded. Jeremiah Pope is second. The performances of Goldberg and Pope lend credence to a point I raised in a December column titled The Comeback Kids, which is that candidates who run credible races and lose (as they both did in 2022) often come back stronger in their next race.
Now let’s look at the open seat race in Council District 1, which is based in Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac and adjacent communities.
Board of Education Member Julie Yang is the overwhelming leader. Even though she is a district candidate, her performance is comparable to Goldberg, who is running at-large. The other two candidates (Drew Morrison and Debbie Spielberg) are basically tied when Spielberg’s application for matching funds is included. Yang and Spielberg are using public financing while Morrison is using traditional financing.
Now to Council District 3, which is mostly based in Gaithersburg and Rockville.
Gaithersburg Mayor Jud Ashman and Rockville City Council Member Izola Shaw, both of whom are using public financing, were basically tied. Yes, Ashman’s data includes a $52,653 application for matching funds that appears to make him the leader. However, Shaw raised a comparable amount of money from individuals, entitling her to a similar amount of matching funds. Unlike Ashman, she did not apply for matching funds in her January report, but once she does, the two will have equivalent amounts of money. The other two candidates (Democrat Allison Eriksen and Republican Ricky Fai Mui) were not financially competitive.
Some of the other district seats, which are occupied by incumbents running for reelection, are contested but there really is not enough data to analyze them yet.
Now to the caveats.
First, this data is a snapshot. Candidates are filing more reports and applying for more matching funds as I write this. Any continuing analysis of this data creates apples and oranges problems because the end dates of the reports will vary by candidate. The next date on which all candidates must file reports at the same time is not until May 19.
Second, for candidates in public financing (which among the above are everyone except Morrison, Eriksen and Mui), there is an important difference in the nature of contributions. Publicly financed candidates may accept contributions only from individuals. However, public matching funds are available only to match contributions made by in-county residents. So while contributions from non-residents are helpful, the REAL key to financial competitiveness is the money coming from people who live in MoCo.
We will take a look at that next.