The Campaign Tallies Start to Trickle In...

No, Jerry Lewis Didn't Donate to Any Campaign In SC, But Larry Grooms and Tim Scott Did File ..... HEY PRETTY LADY !!!!!!!!!!

It's October 12th, so I got up all excited this morning, ready to click onto the SC Ethics Commission website,a dn get the rundown of all the candidates fundraising totals...... And hardly any of the statewide candidates have filed ! Dammit .....

We gave you the rundown of Henry McMaster's $1.1 million blastoff this quarter, and his numbers are online. So far, the only other candidate for Big Cheese (if you don't count House and Senate Majority Leader or BEA commissioner) in SC was Larry Grooms. Larry did not have a great quarter. He raised $330,000, but $260k of that was a loan. He currently has $300,000 cash on hand. The rest of the field has not filed yet. Andre Bauer hasn't even officially announced, although he does have $570k in the bank from last quarter. Nikki Haley has $193,000 from July's totals, and Gresham Barrett has $975k from July. I thought I read he raised $400,000 somewhere, but it hasn't made it to SCEC yet. If so, he'll be $200,000 ahead of McMaster in cash on hand. It's hard to tell who has the upper hand here yet, since McMaster's was a push from officially starting the campaign. Next quarter will tell everything. The field is set, and January will give us an idea of who is really leading the pack....

Of the Lt. Governor field, Tim Scott was the only one to file by this weekend. He raised $171,000 overall, but $150k of that was from the original announcement push, so he's raised $21k since. Again, no overall judgments here yet, but next quarter will show if Tim's got any statewide appeal, or if he's hasn't made any inroads outside of Chucktown. Then again, you can raise enough dough in Chucktown alone.... We know Ken Ard has raised a decent amount, but we'll find out if it was decent or great soon. Bill Connor has focused on hitting the pavement, but they're on the phones too. We'll see how it went, and when we know, you'll know....

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