Republican Bob McDonnell entered the home stretch of the Virginia governor’s race with a sizable cash lead over his opponent, despite spending equally with Democrat Creigh Deeds and raising only slightly more funds last month.
McDonnell closed September with $4.5 million in the bank over Deeds’ $2.7 million, giving him an advantage as both campaigns seek to inundate voters with television ads in the lead-up to the Nov. 3 election.
The Republican nominee raised $3.8 million last month, about $300,000 more than Deeds. Both candidates spent about $5.1 million.
The cash-on-hand disadvantage augurs poorly for a Democratic campaign lagging in polls and hoping for a resurgence with less than three weeks until Election Day. September saw Deeds level an all-out attack on McDonnell’s archconservative 1989 master’s thesis, giving him a temporary bump in polls that Democrats hoped would translate to a surge in fundraising. The Deeds campaign has continued to cast McDonnell as a social extremist.
“It’s going to take a heck of a lot of money for McDonnell to rewrite his out-of-the-mainstream record,” said Deeds spokesman Jared Leopold.
The GOP nominee benefited greatly from an infusion of national party funds, taking in $400,000 from the Republican National Committee. Other top donors include the Republican Party of Virginia, BET co-founder — and high-profile Democrat — Sheila Johnson and coal executive Richard Gilliam, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.
Likewise, Deeds’ biggest benefactor was the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Governors Association, which each delivered $500,000 to the candidate last month, according to the public access group. Unions also banked heavily on the rural state senator: Service Employees International Union gave him $100,000; $400,000 came from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
The McDonnell campaign quickly seized on the organized labor donations.
“Bankrolled by big national labor unions and national Democrats, we know Creigh Deeds will continue to run one of the most negative and divisive campaigns in Virginia political history,” McDonnell campaign manager Phil Cox said in a statement.
