Money & Politics | Daily Report

It may be ending in anticlimax, but the Republican race for governor had some excitement down the stretch.

On May 12, a Survey USA robo-call poll commissioned by four TV stations showed that, against all odds, state insurance commissioner Steve Poizner had closed to dead even with former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

Flickr photo by Jurvetson

That was despite Whitman’s huge financial advantage and her reported 50-point lead in earlier polls.

But a week later, a Public Policy Institute of California poll showed Whitman with a nine-point lead, and on May 24, a second Survey USA poll showed Whitman had rebuilt a 27-point lead. It’s been all good news for Whitman since then.

If the race was briefly infused with excitement, GOP donors weren’t necessarily energized.

Reports compiled by the California secretary of state show that when it came to paying for electioneering, the GOP contest down the stretch remained largely a matter of the candidates writing themselves checks, as it had all along. There was only limited participation by the donors who, in an ordinary year, would have paid for the entire campaign.

Whitman dominated the fundraising during the three-week period between May 12 and Wednesday, raising four times the money that Poizner obtained. But that’s really a measure of the fact that she’s a billionaire, while Poizner is a millionaire.

During the period, Whitman’s campaign raised $13.2 million, records show. But of that, $12 million came out of Whitman’s checkbook, with other donors contributing $1.2 million. In all, 17 donors gave Whitman $25,900, the maximum donation. (Limits don’t apply to candidates spending their personal wealth.)

Whitman’s big donors included PETCO CEO Brian Devine, the political action committee of AT&T and communications billionaire Craig McCaw and his wife.

Put another way, down the stretch, Whitman spent $10 of her own money for every $1 she got from somebody else.

The picture was grimmer for Poizner, but the dynamic was the same.

Down the stretch he raised $3.2 million, but $3 million of it came out of his own pocket.

Only one donor – Marika Alzadon, a writer from Montclair, NJ – gave him a maximum donation of $25,900. In all, Poizner got only $200,000 from outside donors, meaning he was spending $15 of his own money for every $1 he raised.

It was an expensive primary for the Republicans. Through May 22, the last date for which expenditure information was available, Whitman had burned through more than $61 million, records show, while Poizner had spent $20.5 million.

Meanwhile, Democrat Jerry Brown shadowboxed. Through May 22, Brown had spent about $8.1 million on his campaign, or 10 cents for every dollar the two Republicans spent.

But Brown got busy fundraising down the stretch, the records show. From May 12 though Wednesday, he obtained $4.36 million in donations – more than triple what Whitman and Poizner got from donors other than themselves, combined.

Of that, $2.25 million came Brown’s way from the state Democratic Party. In all, 24 donors gave Brown a maximum donation of $25,900. Most were labor unions, including state employees, the operating engineers, the ironworkers and the Service Employees International Union.

On June 1, the day the AT&T PAC gave Whitman $25,900, the PAC gave the same amount to Brown. Poizner didn’t receive a contribution.