Democratic Georgia Senate candidate Michelle Nunn has fended off charges that she’s not really from the state, having grown up in the District of Columbia suburbs.
Her latest campaign finance filing shows that her money definitely isn’t grown in Georgia.
The Nunn Victory Fund, a special form of fundraising committee set up to solicit wealthy donors who want to exceed the $5,000 cap on normal campaign committees, raised $1.2 million in the quarter that ended Sept. 30, according to records filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission.
Less than half of that — $474,000 — came from Georgians, a Washington Examiner analysis showed. That’s less than the $546,000 that came from California donors.
Her largest donor lives in San Francisco, and other top donors live in Berkeley — liberal hotspots far removed from the Southern state she hopes to represent.
In addition, $152,000 came from New Yorkers and $110,000 from donors residing in D.C., Maryland and Virginia. There was little support from elsewhere.
The main campaign committee’s reports are filed only on paper so they take longer to arrive and can’t be aggregated by state; they also don’t include small donors’ addresses.
The Senate seat, long occupied by retiring Republican Saxby Chambliss, is among the most competitive in the nation.
Nunn is opposed by Republican David Perdue and the race is too close to call, according to the most recent surveys.
An internal memo earlier this year from her campaign staff underscored that voters were concerned she was not a “real Georgian.”
Her father was in the Senate for many years and she grew up mostly in Bethesda, Md., attending a prestigious school in D.C. before going to the University of Virginia and Harvard.
The memo said her campaign materials needed “rural-oriented imagery” to help undo the damage.
