First Quarter Fundraising: How Much Does it Really Matter?

Plenty of stock is being put into these reports. By us, by the media, and even the candidates themselves, who told us in their fundraising e-mails that the future of America depended on whether or not you, YES YOU, donate as little as $20 before midnight, March 31st. But how much does first quarter fundraising really matter in a year preceding a presidential election? Stay tuned.

Let’s look at fundraising by Democratic Primary Candidates in 2003 (reference, note these numbers do not include transfers from previous campaigns). Who was the number one fund raiser in the first quarter? Did you guess Kerry or Dean? If you did, you lose one point.  John Edwards lead fundraising with $7.42 million dollars. Kerry came in second ($7.01 million). Care to take a guess at third? Dean? Wrong again. Dick Gephardt at $5.95 million. In fact, Howard Dean, the front-runner for most of 2003, came in fifth place with $2.6 million, just between Joe Lieberman ($3.01 million) and Bob Graham ($1.12 million).

Then came the second quarter of 2003, when money really started flowing in. Howard Dean took this one in a landslide with $7.6 Million, followed by Kerry ($5.9 million), Lieberman ($5.14 million) and Edwards ($4.5 million).

And then came the fall, and more fundraising (reference).  As of September 31, 2003, Dean looked to be firmly in the lead, having raised $25.3 million. Trailing by an increasing margin were Kerry ($19.8 million), Edwards ($14.4 million) and Gephardt ($13.5 million).

By December 31, 2003, Dean had a lock on the nomination, judging by finance reports, anyway.  The good governor had amassed a war chest of nearly $50 million ($40,959,621 to be exact).  Somewhere of in the distance, Kerry was still below Dean’s third quarter total with $25.05 million.  Edwards and Gephardt rounded out with $16 million and change each.

But in just under three weeks, Dean took a nose dive. Kerry won the Iowa caucus, and Dean finished a distant third.  Kerry rode the success to an eventual nod, and Edwards rode his second place finish to victory in South Carolina (virtually guaranteed anyway, being that it was the place of his birth) and a Vice Presidential nomination.

So what does all this mean? Let’s recap.  The guy who raised the most funds in the first quarter, ended up finishing second in the first contest, even though he ran in third for fundraising the majority of the precious year.  The guy who raised less funds than Kerry, Edwards, Gephardt and Lieberman in the first quarter raised a bankroll twice what anyone else had, yet still came in a distant third in Iowa, behind the afore mentioned Edwards and the candidate who had half his money, but out-raised him by over 300% percent in the first quarter of 2003 (Kerry).

Bottom line, its anyone’s ball game folks. Stay tuned, this one is going to be interesting.