Paired with Gray’s recent straw poll victories, the challenger appears to have momentum in the mayor’s race
D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray won the mayoral race for cash over the past two months, out-raising incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty at a rate of more than 2 to 1 since early June, campaign finance reports show.
The money victory is the latest in a series of wins for Gray. In recent weeks, he has won a citywide straw poll and five of six ward straw polls, including one in Fenty’s own backyard, Ward 4. Gray’s recent endorsements include the chamber of commerce and the police union.
The finance reporting period that ended midnight Tuesday was the second consecutive one that saw Gray beat Fenty in the cash grab. From June 11 through Aug. 10, Gray raised $707,000 from 2,265 donors compared to Fenty’s $308,000 from 599 donors.
“Gray’s very credible run is attracting dollars and donors as the campaign has gained momentum,” said longtime D.C. civic activist Terry Lynch. “It’s neck and neck. For the next month, the campaigns will be fighting tooth and nail.”
Gray, it seems, has all the momentum with 33 days to go until the Sept. 14 primary.
But winning the latest battles might not mean winning the war, especially in the face of Fenty’s piles of hard cash.
Gray has $689,000 on hand compared to Fenty’s $1.9 million. Down the stretch, Fenty can spend $55,000 a day compared to Gray’s $21,000. And that’s with Fenty spending $1.8 million over the past two months, with a little more than $1 million going to advertising and the rest to staff salaries and canvassers. Gray spent $393,000 during that same period.
A Fenty campaign staffer said much of the $1 million spent on advertising includes ads that have yet to run and two negative ads released Wednesday evening.
Those ads aim to link Gray to the “bad old days” of the 1990s, when the council chairman was director of the D.C. Department of Human Services.
Gray’s senior strategist Mo Elleithee fired back. “Maybe if [Fenty] spent less time on attack ads, and more time producing a plan or vision for the future … his campaign wouldn’t be struggling,” Elleithee said.
WIth the advertisements already paid for, Fenty can spend his cash elsewhere. Fenty campaign sources say they’re going to focus on a massive get-out-the-vote effort that will begin Aug. 30, the day four polls open in the city for early voting. The Fenty campaign believes it has enough cash to keep vans running to the polls and canvassers knocking on doors.
“The rule change that allows the early voting favors the campaign with the most money,” said political consultant Chuck Thies, who is working on Councilman Jim Graham’s Ward 1 campaign.
Gray could also face another challenge: becoming a front-runner in a campaign in which he has long been the underdog.
Without extensive citywide polling, it’s hard to say exactly how close the race has become. The most recent poll taken of Ward 1 residents, and released in early July by the Graham campaign, showed Fenty with a slight lead, 43 percent to Gray’s 37 percent. But that also left 18 percent of the voters undecided.
Gray’s recent victories, however, put him at risk of growing complacent as he perceives himself as leading the race, Thies said.
“But there’s nothing to suggest he’s growing overconfident right now,” Thies said. “Vince is not going to bed and thinking, ‘I’ve got this in the bag.’ ”
