Murphy's Take on Guv Race Fund Raising

Milwaukee Magazine's Bruce Murphy posts a weekly column online.

I agree with him about 30 percent of the time, but I'd have to say this analysis is hard to argue against.

Why Jim Doyle Won’t Raise $12 Million
For a year or more, we’ve been told that Gov. Jim Doyle could raise as much as $12 million in campaign donations. The idea was that he’d have way too much money to lose his bid for re-election.

I think we can stick a needle in that balloon. Doyle is unlikely to get anywhere near $12 million. The new campaign finance reports covering the second half of 2005 show that Doyle raised $1.2 million, after raising $1.4 million in the first six months of 2005.

To date, Doyle has raised $5.9 million. Is he going to raise that much over a 10-month period in 2006? Of course not. He will be lucky to hit $8.5 million in total money raised.

If Doyle had been a Tommy Thompson-type incumbent, whose high positives made him a shoo-in for re-election, he might well have hit the $12 million. But Doyle is at best the front-runner in a race that’s likely to be close.

In that kind of election, the many insiders who want access to government will hedge their bets and give to both parties. Thus, the combined Republican ticket of Mark Green and Scott Walker raised $1.3 million in the second half of 2005, besting Doyle’s $1.2 million.

Walker raised about 45% of the combined Republican total, a good enough showing that insiders could be left to split their donations three ways until the September primary. That could make Doyle’s task all the tougher.

On the other hand, Walker’s strength means that the GOP primary will be hard fought, and both Republican candidates could spend the bank to win, while Doyle sits back and saves his money. That should still leave Doyle with a huge edge in campaign donations to spend, but nowhere near $12 million and nowhere near as invulnerable as such a figure would have suggested.

My take? Doyle will have raised around $9-10 million for the race and will have a $4 million lead in cash on hand the day after the GOP Primary.