[sthumbs=1376|1696,max,2,y,center]

Election day for Iowa gubernatorial candidates Chet Culver and Terry Branstad is less than three months away, and both campaigns are at the height of their fundraising push. Dr. Andrew Green, associate professor of Political Science at Central College says typically incumbents hold the advantage in campaign fundraising, but former governor Branstad has really shown his fundraising prowess since entering the race for governor.

In the disclosure statement filed July 19th, Branstad had raised $2.1 million, while Culver had raised $776,000 in the same time period. However, Culver’s cash-on-hand amount of $2.85 million was over $1.2 million dollars ahead of Branstad. Dr. Green says while those numbers are interesting, the upcoming filing this fall will be more telling of each candidate’s fundraising power.

“In terms of fundraising and who will have the advantage in fundraising – the October 19th filing for both campaigns is going to be the really interesting filing to look at,” says Dr. Green. Both candidates are going to be in General Election campaign mode, and 90, 60, 30 days before the election to be able to raise the money to go over the air – both on radio and TV – as well as hold events is going to be very, very vital.”

Dr. Green adds that another notable statistic in Iowa’s race for governor has been that both the Branstad and Culver campaigns spent roughly $1 to $1.1 million during the primary elections, which is interesting because Branstad had two opponents to face, while Culver went unopposed.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,