Democrat Brian McClendon raised more than $1 million in his bid for Kansas secretary of state, an amount one political scientist called stratospheric for a campaign to be the state’s chief elections officer.
McClendon’s latest campaign finance report showed that he raised $674,000 for the quarter that ended Oct. 25. It brings to almost $1.2 million the total that McClendon has raised for the campaign this year.
Washburn University political scientist Bob Beatty called McClendon’s fundraising historic for a position that’s been held for years by Republicans who only had to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars to get re-elected.
“This is really an unusual circumstance to have such a wealthy person with access to a lot of donors run for this office,” Beatty said.
McClendon put $350,000 of his own money into the campaign, including $200,000 in loans he listed on his most recent finance report filed with the state.
The former Google executive’s Republican rival, state Rep. Scott Schwab, raised $151,000 in the last quarter and a total of about $303,000 this year and last.
Schwab faced four candidates in the Republican primary and was left with about $18,000 on hand at the end of July. McClendon did not have a primary race. Schwab has almost $36,000 left as of Oct. 25.
McClendon, who’s billed as a Kansas “homegrown success story” because of his role in creating Google Earth, raised more than four times as much money as Schwab in the last reporting period that ran from July 27 through Oct. 25.
The amount of money McClendon is raising surpasses what outgoing Secretary of State Kris Kobach raised in each of his last two elections.
For his 2014 re-election campaign, Kobach raised about $335,000 over two years going into the election, according to state campaign finance reports. In the 2010 campaign, Kobach raised about $287,000 over two years in his first campaign for statewide office.
Go back further, and McClendon’s fundraising dwarfs what former Republican Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh raised when he ran for his last term in 2006.
Thornburgh raised $292,000 in a race in which he decisively defeated three other candidates, including Democratic state Sen. David Haley.
McClendon’s campaign manager, Scott Allegrucci, said that although McClendon tapped into friends in the tech sector in California, the candidate collected his share of contributions from inside Kansas.
Allegrucci said McClendon had about 350 Kansas donors during the primary reporting period and 490 during the general. Among those contributing locally were Kansas City construction magnate Terry Dunn and Cerner executive Cliff Illig.
Schwab said he was satisfied with his fundraising, crediting McClendon’s success to California contributors.
“If you look at it up and down, there’s a ton of California money in there,” Schwab said. “His Californian connections are going to raise a lot of money in California. California doesn’t care about elections in Kansas.”
While McClendon has raised plenty of money, Schwab said he doesn’t believe the Democrat’s message is proving effective with voters.
“His message isn’t resonating. While I am running for secretary of state, he’s campaigning against Kris Kobach,” Schwab said of McClendon’s strategy of criticizing the outgoing secretary of state’s restrictive voting measures. “Clearly he didn’t Google my name to realize that I am not Kris Kobach. I’m Scott Schwab.”
While there are plenty of California addresses on McClendon’s report — a couple fundraisers were held there — it’s an indication of the trust he’s built up over the years working in the tech sector, Allegrucci said.
“The people who have worked with him, the people who have worked for him, the people he’s worked for, generally like him quite a lot,” he said. “And more than like him, they trust him and they believe in him.”
As a first-time candidate, McClendon needed the money to get his name out, which he’s doing through a mix of television and digital advertising.
“If you’re running as a Democrat, the voter registration rolls are 2-to-1 against you,” Allegrucci said of the majority of voters being Republican.
“You don’t have to be Brian McClendon in terms of your math skills to be able to understand 2-to-1 registration is a steep hill,” he said.
The only poll released publicly showed Schwab leading McClendon 43 percent to 34 percent. Libertarian Rob Hodgkinson had 5 percent. Undecided was at 16 percent. The margin of error was 2.4 percent.
“You have to be able to pay for the means to get your message out,” Allegrucci said. “One human being can’t physically cover 400 by 200 miles to get to every community and every voter, and it costs money.”
McClendon, he said, put his own money in the campaign to back the investment he was asking donors to make. “He is willing to put his own money in, but he’s also able to raise money,” Allegrucci said.
