Democrats, Republicans Report First Quarter Fundraising

Yesterday both major political parties in Arkansas submitted their quarterly fundraising and expenditure reports to the Secretary of State.

From January 1 to March 31 of 2013, here’s the fundraising and spending breakout for the Democratic and Republic Party of Arkansas.

Democratic Party of Arkansas
Raised = $52,447
Spent = $15,559

Republic Party of Arkansas
Raised $189,056
Spent = $108,130

The largest donation for the DPA was for $40,000, coming from Dustin McDaniel’s defunct gubernatorial campaign.

The largest RPA donation came from Lisenne Rockefeller in the cumulative amount of $25,000. Oddly enough, the RPA also received a large donation from a defunct campaign in the form of $15,000 from Chuck Banks 2006 Lt. Governor’s campaign.

Through quirks in the state and federal laws, it’s difficult to determine how much cash on hand each party has in their accounts. However, each party must report to the Federal Election Commission the amount of money in their federal accounts.

On March 1, the DPA reported to the FEC they had $46,159 and the RPA reported having $62,376 in their respective federal accounts. In their respective non-federal accounts both political parties could be flush with cash, or broke, but we don’t know since it’s not required to be reported.

I won’t bore you with complexities of state and federal reporting requirements, but it should be noted that all of the DPA’s expenses are not listed on their filings with the Secretary of State since it is not legally required.

However according to filings with the FEC from January 1 to March 1, the DPA spent a total of $89,733. Data for all of March is not due until April 20.

Historically after a major general election, both political parties are usually short on cash since they spent so much on the previous election. And it takes time for donors to begin giving again since they are tapped out after giving so much in the election year.

Both parties will spend all of 2013 restocking their respective war chests and it seems they both have a long way to go.