With just over a million dollars in total fundraising, Jeff Hurd leads the pack for Tuesday’s Republican primary for House District 3. But in the opposite primary, unopposed Democratic candidate Adam Frisch has raised over $13 million in the past two years since narrowly losing to Boebert in the 2022 general election.
Candidates are required to provide records of their fundraising and spending to the Federal Election Commission – the agency that oversees campaign finance for all federal races – quarterly and 12 days before the primary election. The records, which the FEC collects to ensure compliance with campaign finance laws, can also be helpful indicators of how candidates are campaigning.
Candidates like to tout their successes with raising money from everyday American voters, but the reality is often more complicated. PACs and political parties can contribute funds as well, and individual donors are limited in how much they can contribute directly to candidates in each election. Candidates also contribute to their own campaigns directly and sometimes loan themselves money to be able to front costs and get their campaign off the ground, hoping to raise enough money to pay themselves back in the long run.
While most of the candidates in Tuesday’s Republican primary have raised most of their money from contributions from individual donors, Russ Andrews and Lew Webb have both lent themselves large sums of money – $311,255 and $150,000, respectively – to fund the majority of their campaigns.
Neither campaign responded to multiple requests for comment for this story.
While Frisch has refused monetary support from PACs operated by corporations (corporate PACs), he has accepted donations from other PACs and from party committees. Hurd has also accepted those donations, but neither candidate draws a significant portion of their funding from PACs.
Both candidates have raised most of their funds from individual donors. Nick Bayer, a senior adviser to Hurd, said Hurd’s hours of personal phone calls to voters each day are effective because people are already familiar with him from his work as a lawyer and community involvement. This, in addition to Hurd’s brand as a candidate who intends to deliver on policy promises – unlike Boebert, who he’d originally expected to faceoff in the primary – made raising money easier, he said.
Frisch gained attention beyond Colorado when he ran and lost to Boebert in the 2022 general election by just 546 votes. Even after she moved districts, his campaign has kept up the momentum with fundraising by reaching voters and donors on the road across the district.
“We've done well (with fundraising), because we've had so much success, again, from Democrats, independents and Republicans,” he said. “We've told (our) story – for about two years – about how we're going to do this, and we've honored doing the right thing for the right reasons in the right way, and that's earned trust with a lot of people. But then again, at the end of the day, it's all about getting the votes but in a district that requires 55,000 miles of gas money.”
Stephen Varela has also raised most of his money from individual donors. Alan Philp, a consultant and spokesperson for Varela, said the campaign started raising more money after Varela officially made the ballot in April and has focused on meeting with donors and voters since then.
“We did get some real momentum, particularly in May and here in June on the fundraising front after he made the ballot,” he said. “But it is just grinding it out one by one and meeting donors. And just like asking for votes, you're asking for contributions.”
Ron Hanks said he intentionally started fundraising more after officially making it on the ballot, noting that some of the interest in his campaign draws on previous support for his run for Senate in 2022.
“My campaign did not seek endorsements and outside influence like the other ones have,” he said. “I kind of abhor that process by others, where you become beholden to outside interests. I am not.”
Curtis McCrackin, who kept track of his own finances and decided not to hire a staff, has also funded just over a quarter of his campaign with money he lent to himself, but having raised less overall, his loans are also smaller at just $20,000. He said he and his wife had contributed money because they “felt like it wasn't right to ask others to do what we wouldn't be willing to do ourselves,” and he would also front costs by lending himself money, so if he raised enough he would be able to pay himself back.
“We wanted to be grassroots and, in my mind going into this was, if people hear a message they think they can grasp hold of, I can be their candidate. If not, I'm not going to tell them what they want to hear,” McCrackin said. “I'm going to tell them what I think is our problems and what I think our direction should be. And that's what really, I think, a candidate should be.”
Candidates often like to tout their average donation size as being low to show that their campaign has been fueled by everyday people and not wealthy donors.
But looking closer into candidates’ records, it is possible to see how much of their funding comes from smaller and larger donations. Frisch has raised much of his $13 million from donations under $200, while candidates like Varela and Webb have drawn more from larger donations of $2,000 or more. For Webb though, these donations are only a small part of his campaign, which is primarily funded by a loan.
While all of Hanks’ donors hail from inside Colorado, Frisch and Webb have drawn from more donors from out of state.
While the influence of money from PACs, parties and other funding committees is limited by campaign finance laws, Super PACS are able to spend unlimited amounts – called independent expenditures – to support a candidate as long as they don’t coordinate directly with the candidate’s campaign. Like regular campaign expenses, these can be spent on media like video or digital ads or on mailers and canvassing. These committees are required to register with the FEC and report their spending in support or opposition of a candidate as well, both through various regularly scheduled reports.
Looking at these reports, Hurd has had the most support from Super PACs, but he has faced some opposition as well. Hanks has faced the most opposition from Super PACs, with over $200,000 spent against him on a combination of radio, television and digital ads.
The FEC requires independent expenditures to be reported within 48 hours in some instances, which means more recent expenditures are visible. While some of these might be reported as estimates now and then as exact accurate amounts in a quarterly report, they give a ballpark idea of how much is being spent on candidates.
For example, a Super PAC supporting Lew Webb has spent $137,000 on media to promote him, which has yet to be reported in a regularly scheduled filing.
Complete reports of the independent expenditures spent on each candidate leading up to the primary won’t be ready until mid-July.
By then, though, super PACs and candidates alike will be gearing up for the general election in November.
Kathryn Squyres is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at ksquyres@durangoherald.com.
