By Jeremy Marsh

After their decisive primary wins, U.S. Sen. Dean Heller and Rep. Jacky Rosen continued their fundraising sprints with an increased reliance on in-state donors as the November general election approaches, according to second quarter FEC reports.

A Nevada Independent analysis of the publicly available FEC quarterly reports revealed that while Rosen and Heller raised similar percentages from out-of-state and in-state donors, Rosen maintained the broader, national base of small-dollar donors that propelled her in earlier quarters.

The reports must be digitized by the FEC before they can be analyzed in detail. Unlike other candidates for federal office, Senate candidates are not required to submit digital copies of their FEC reports.

From May 24 to June 30, Heller raised $1.18 million powered by an average itemized donation of $817, while Rosen raised $1.84 million with an average itemized donation of $283. While the gap between Heller and Rosen narrowed from the previous quarter, their average itemized donations remained similar.

Itemized donations composed two-thirds of Heller’s fundraising, while Political Action Committees (PACs) made up 24 percent of his haul. Unitemized donations, those under $200, made up the remaining 9 percent of Heller’s quarterly total.

Rosen raised 59 percent of her total from itemized donations, while unitemized donations made up 32 percent. The remaining 8 percent came from PAC donations. 

Rosen’s use of online fundraising tools such as ActBlue means that many donations below $200 were itemized, lowering both her average itemized donation amount and percentage of money that came from unitemized donors.

In the previous quarter, Rosen raised 86 percent of her money from out-of-state donors while Heller got 83 percent of his donations from out-of-state. This quarter, with Nevadans tuned into the Senate race after the primary, both candidates raised about 40 percent of their quarterly total from Nevada residents.

However, Heller received 58 percent of his fundraising from maximum donations of $2,700. Rosen relied on maximum donors for only 15 percent of her quarterly total.

Rosen’s best fundraising state was neighboring California, where she raised $410,047, about 30 percent of her itemized total. In second place with just over $200,000 was Nevada, accounting for 15 percent of her itemized fundraising.

New York came in third with 14 percent of her quarterly itemized haul. Massachusetts and Illinois made up the remainder of the top five with about 4 percent each.

In order, Rosen’s top five cities for fundraising in the quarter were New York, New York; Los Angeles; Las Vegas; Washington, DC; and Chicago,. Henderson, appeared sixth on the list while Reno came in ninth.

Heller’s best fundraising state was Nevada, where he raised $340,115 (about 40 percent of his itemized total). Second place belonged to Pennsylvania, where $142,560, about 17 percent, of his quarterly itemized total came from.

Georgia was Heller’s third best state, accounting for about 6 percent of his haul, while California came in fourth with 4 percent and Tennessee in fifth with 3 percent.

In the second quarter, Heller’s top five cities were, in order, Las Vegas; Reno,; Incline Village; McDonough, Georgia; and Knoxville, Tennessee. Henderson was Heller’s ninth best city for fundraising.

Employers

This quarter, the analysis also looked at the employers of Rosen and Heller’s donors. This analysis excluded individuals who listed on their donation forms that they were not employed, self-employed, retired, or similarly did not list an employer.

Rosen’s donors listed Google most frequently as their employer. Employers of the tech giant contributed $12,497 to her quarterly total. Other significant employers were Columbia University with $6,000, ABC with $5,900, NetApp (a Silicon-valley based cloud data services company) with $5,750, and Boston University with $5,450.

The most common employer for Heller was Jennmar, a Pittsburgh-based mining company. These employees gave Heller $45,900. Caesars Entertainment employees gave the incumbent $36,200 while employees of WHT CPA, an Atlanta-based accounting firm, contributed $20,000. Other significant employers of his donors were Frank Calandra Inc., a mining company owned by Jennmar’s founder of the same name, with $18,900 and Verizon with $8,500.

Expenses

Finally, the candidate’s quarterly spending was analyzed. Contribution refunds were excluded from this analysis and instead factored into the quarterly fundraising totals.

Along with Rosen outraising Heller, she substantially outspent him during this quarter. Rosen spent $1,020,618 after her primary win, while Heller spent $408,941 after his primary victory.

By far, Rosen’s largest expense category was media buys and ad production. The $499,071 spent on advertising was about 49 percent of her total quarterly spending.

Payroll and salary accounted for 23 percent of expenses while 9.8 percent of her spending went towards printing, shipping, and postage.

Heller spent the largest chunk of his money on consultants. About 25 percent, $102,874 was spent on outside help for his campaign.

Email services made up just over 12 percent of his spending while printing, shipping and postage accounted for 11.5 percent of quarterly expenses.

All of this fundraising and spending left Heller with a substantial total of $5.83 million cash on hand at the end of the quarter while Rosen ended the quarter with $3.83 million cash on hand.

With fewer than 100 days until Nevadans cast votes, expect both campaigns to continue to raise money nationally and start to utilize their war chests on more advertising. The race should also increasingly attract outside spending by Super PACs and political parties as control of the narrowly held Senate could hinge on Nevada’s seat.

Third quarter reports, which cover the period from July 1 to September 30, are due October 15.

Disclosure: Caesars has donated to The Nevada Independent. You can see a full list of donors here.

Jeremy Marsh is a student at George Washington University and an occasional contributor to The Nevada Independent.