Mark Lamb Takes In Less than Half Mil in Q3

Republican US Senate candidate Mark Lamb was already hearing footsteps from Kari Lake’s Manolo Blahniks. But now that Q3 fundraising totals are in, the Pinal County sheriff is seeing just how hard it’ll be to sustain a statewide race.

According to the FEC, Lamb showed receipts in the quarter totaling $475,161.21. That’s less than the $503,626 the campaign spent during the quarter, leaving the candidate with only $306,973 cash on hand just as the formidable fundraiser Lake, who announced her candidacy last Tuesday, hits the trail.

Whenever a campaign spends more than it collects, it’s a concern, but this is a revenue problem, not a spending problem. None of the expenditures is particularly egregious. The expenses include a lot of respected names in GOP politics — the digital fundraiser WinRed got about 14 grand, and the morning group got another 22. Push Digital is doing the online ads, and raked in about 90 grand, but the majority of that is surely for pass-through ad buys rather than payments to the company itself, which seem to be in the $5k/mo neighborhood. Campaign Manager Patrick Aquilina is earning a reasonable $8500/mo and the flights and lodging are in line with ordinary expenditures.

This is all very normal—modest even—and in keeping with what GOP primary voters, ever sensitive to reckless spending would want to see.

The campaign will need to find a lot more donors like Kimberly Dykstra of Gilbert and Roger Harris of Phoenix, rare donors who maxed out to Lamb.