The fundraising numbers are in for April 1-May 27, and there’s a lot of interesting stuff in there. On the Republican side, for instance, Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin spent a sh*t-ton of money, most of which was his own, to basically buy himself the nomination. Here are a few eye-popping stats:
- For April 1-May 27 alone, Youngkin loaned himself $6.5 million. This made up a full 77.9% of his total $8,342,858 raised during those (nearly) two months.
- Youngkin reported receiving just $72,802 total in contributions of $100 or less. This equals a miniscule 0.87% of his total $8,342,858 contributions, meaning that over 99% of Youngkin’s contributions were greater than $100.
- Youngkin spent around $8.9 million through May 8, the day of the Republican “unassembled convention” (he reported spending $4.4 million from January 1 through March 31, and then reported spending *another* $7.2 million from April 1 through May 27; according to data from his report pulled by VPAP, $4.5 million of those expenditures happened before or on May 8).
- Adding January 1-March 31 and April 1-May 27 expenditures together, Youngkin spent a massive $8.9 million by the VA GOP’s “unassembled convention” on May 8.
- Youngkin received 10,318 raw votes on the first ballot at the VA GOP’s “unassembled convention,” equaling 4,131 weighted votes
- So…Youngkin spent $861 per raw vote received on the first ballot at the convention and $2,152 per weighted vote!
- To put this in perspective, if Youngkin were to spend $861 per vote in the gubernatorial election this fall, and if he got about as many votes (1.4 million) as Ralph Northam did in 2017, that would imply spending of $861 x 1.4 million = $1.2 BILLION. That would be a massive 33 times (!) the $36.8 million Ralph Northam spent winning the governor’s race in 2017.
Of course, Youngkin’s “only” worth like $300 million or whatever, so he couldn’t possibly spend $1.2 billion – even if he wanted to (which, presumably, he doesn’t). Also, this is more illustrative than anything, as you can’t directly extrapolate from an unassembled convention to the general election. But still…it kinda amazing to run these numbers, see how much per vote Youngkin spent to win the VA GOP gubernatorial nomination, and what types of numbers it could imply for this fall, even if Youngkin only spends at one-tenth the rate or whatever (one tenth of $1.2 billion is still $120 million!).
Sign up for the Blue Virginia weekly newsletter
