How Much Did the 8th CD Candidates Raise in 1Q14?

1st quarter 2014 fundraising numbers for the 11 (count ’em, eleven!) Democratic candidates in the 8th CD should be coming out any day now. But why wait until then? As Homer Simpson might say, “but I want to know NOW!” Well, we can’t actually “know” the numbers right now, but we can do the next best thing: take wild-a**, uneducated guesses! 😉 Even better, we can ask around to leading Democratic politicos to see what they think. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far, but feel free to chime in with your own wild-a** guesses as well in the comments section.

1. Don Beyer: Every person I chatted with predicted that Beyer will lead the field in 1Q14 money raised (note: this includes money candidates give to themselves). The range was all over the place, from as low as $300,000 to as high as $1 million. I’d guess it will be towards the higher end of that range, but we’ll see soon enough.

2. Lavern Chatman: Most everyone picked her second behind Beyer, with perhaps $250k-$300k. That sounds about right to me, given her personal wealth and connections to Oprah Winfrey.

3. Adam Ebbin: It gets much harder to rank the candidates after the top two, but most people I talked to seem to think that Ebbin raised a nice amount of money, somewhere in the $100k-$200k range, including from national LGBT donors.

3. Patrick Hope: I got roughly the same answers for Hope as I did for Ebbin, somewhere in the $100k-$200k range.

5. Bill Euille: Estimates by the people I checked with ranged from around $50k to $100k. I don’t have a good feel for Euille’s candidacy at this point, so I’m not going to venture a guess.

5. Charniele Herring: Estimates were all over the place for Herring, ranging from as low as $40k to as high as $100k. I’d guess Herring will end up towards the higher end of that range, given her support from national women’s groups.

5. Alfonso Lopez: Estimates also were all over the place for Lopez, ranging from as low as $30k to as high as $100k+. My guess is the final number will be in the higher end of that range, but we’ll see.

8. Mark Levine: Major wildcard here, as Levine has said he would tap his personal wealth in this race. So it’s possible that Levine could end up much higher on this list, maybe even in the range of Chatman. Or not. This one will be fascinating.

8. Bruce Shuttleworth: May have some personal funds to tap into, so possibly $50k or so?

10-11. Derek Hyra and Satish Korpe: Nobody ventured a guess with these two, except that the numbers will probably be low. Got me.

So what are your predictions? And just think, you can’t do any worse on this than you did on your NCAA Tournament brackets, right (don’t even ask me about mine)? LOL