When Sen. Arlen Specter changed parties last spring, he promised to refund the campaign contributions of anyone who asked. Thanks in part to an aggressive effort by the conservative Club for Growth to notify and remind donors of Specter’s promise, about 900 donors asked for and got their money back, to the tune of $850,000.
The New York Times Caucus blog reports:
About 900 people requested refunds, his campaign said … But it means that Mr. Specter raised less in the last quarter of 2009 than Mr. Toomey raised. Mr. Specter raised $1.15 million, while Mr. Toomey raised $1.67 million. Mr. Sestak raised $650,000. Of the $850,000 that Mr. Specter returned, the bulk of it was in the fourth quarter. If Mr. Specter had not had to refund those donations, he might have won an important public relations battle over the weekend when the candidates made public their fundraising totals for the last quarter of 2009. For Mr. Specter, falling behind Mr. Toomey in his quarterly report, for whatever reason, is bad news by itself but also because it followed a poll last week from Franklin and Marshall College that showed him trailing Mr. Toomey by double-digits in a hypothetical match-up.
