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Irvin’s money

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Illinois

* Richard Irvin’s campaign has reported raising $53 million since his committee was formed.

Disclosed campaign contributions made by his committee have so far totaled $1.37 million, almost all of that was contributed in the second quarter, which began April 1.

During the first quarter, Irvin reported spending about 85.5 percent of his expenditures on media placement. That means overhead was 14.5 percent, but it costs extra money to get things up and running.

* An ad buyer for a campaign not affiliated with any of the GOP candidates running for governor put together a detailed report for me detailing Richard Irvin’s media spending. I’m not allowed to post it, but here are the results…

* Grand Total: $29,665,712.67

That includes radio, but obviously doesn’t include mail. Irvin has spent a ton on mailers, including a recent 4-page newspaper. We got a glimpse at how much he was spending per mailer when his mail house in-kinded $152K for a mailer after failing to put the “Paid for by” on the original. My guess is he’s spent at least $3 million on mail, maybe more. We could say 5 just to be on the safe side, because some of those mailers were expensive because they were sent to a wide audience.

If he’s still spending about 14.5 percent on overhead, that’s $8 million or so, but I kinda doubt it’s that high. Say 5-7.

* So, that gives him somewhere around $7 to $9 million for the homestretch.

According to that buyer’s document, he spent about $3.6 million the last week of May on paid media. But then he spent $798,401.81 the first week of June.

Meanwhile, the other members of the “slate” have received very little money for their campaigns.

Thoughts?

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 3:02 pm

Comments

Maybe fewer ads attacking Bailey as a closeted Biden voters and why he is Madigan and Prizker’s nightmare and more ads about why Richard Irvin would be a good governor, in hindsight

Comment by Nick Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 3:08 pm
I get mailers from him at a pace of 2-3 per week. They go right into recycling, along with all of the others, don’t even read them. Great spending plan, Mr. Irvan, er I mean Griffin. I’ve lost count on the amount of text messages I’ve received, but I’ve replied STOP to everyone…and they just keep coming.

Comment by Ryan Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 3:12 pm
“Thoughts”

These will be wandering, so I apologize. But my thoughts, really, are what a waste. The spending on campaigns in general. In a campaign where a billionaire funds a proxy in an effort to run against another billionaire, where both billionaires combined might spend upwards of $150 million…imagine if instead those two put their money towards something useful? I think about the Baby Fold in Bloomington that closed down because they couldn’t scrounge together $450,000 during the thin Rauner years…

Some of these guys so much money to burn. $50 million on Richard Irvin? Woof.

In a perfect world, I’d wish that billionaires had to match any campaign donations over $1 million towards a nonprofit.

Comment by AlfondoGonz Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 3:14 pm
If Irvin loses the primary I hope the other members of the Griffin slate have a backup plan to fundraise since Kenny will probably go out for a pack of cigarettes if he can’t get revenge on the guy who dared to make him pay more in taxes.

Comment by ItsMillerTime Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 3:16 pm
===That includes radio, but obviously doesn’t include mail. Irvin has spent a ton on mailers===

Outside TV ads, mail programs are awesome for the grift.

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 3:18 pm
-Meanwhile, the other members of the “slate” have received very little money for their campaigns.-

Irvin’s recent troubles aside, and making some assumptions based on a lack of polling, this neglecting the other races issue could come back to haunt Irvin/Griffin and the party in general. Assuming close races and high undecideds in other statewides, come the State Fair the GOP could be looking at Bailey, Hubbard or Piton for Senate, and maybe a DeVore for AG on their dais. There is no path for that. Almost a reverse LaRouchie situation.

Comment by Ron Burgundy Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 3:22 pm
I blame myself. It’s raining cash…

That’s $54 million just on the Irvin side.

- Arthur Andersen - would’ve been mad at me too, the consulting firm woulda made bank.

:)

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 3:23 pm
This has been the non-stop parlor game for the last 18 hours. Everyone that has tried to run the numbers has come to the same general conclusion: that they likely have at least $5 - $10 million left. Generally, the speculation has fallen into one of two categories:

1) Their polling says there are no persuadables outside of the Chicago DMA, voters in those parts of the state have made up their minds for or against Irvin and there’s nothing more that can be accomplished there.

This appears to be what the campaign was hinting at with their statements last night, but still it’s hard to believe that the message penetration has been so thorough that there are no more persuadable voters in the other 9 DMAs.

2) That Griffin has asked for at least some of his money back and they have to ration what little remains.

There’s no evidence to suggest that #2 is happening, but I’m seeing that speculation run rampant anyway. We’ll know on 7/15 when the Q2 D-2’s get filed if that was true.

Regardless, pretty wild stuff. People will be telling stories about this race on barstools for decades to come.

Comment by The Captain Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 3:32 pm
This Irvin campaign is becoming the Titanic trip!! Somebody really pulled the wool over Kenny G !!! Lol

Comment by NotRich Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 3:35 pm
==This appears to be what the campaign was hinting at with their statements last night, but still it’s hard to believe that the message penetration has been so thorough that there are no more persuadable voters in the other 9 DMA

Even if there aren’t persuadables, I would want to make sure I don’t lose vote share downstate which could be the result of going dark outside of the Metro this early.

On the plus side, he’s not going to break Hull’s likely cost per vote so he has that going for Ken Griffin.

Comment by ArchPundit Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 3:41 pm
40 million campaign about nothing, reap what you sow

Comment by Rabid Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 3:45 pm
To expand on ArchPundit’s point, even if there aren’t persuadables left I would want to influence the remaining decisions. Even if you’ve concluded that Irvin direct to camera was the wrong messenger for those voters you still want to prevent Bailey from consolidating the anti-Irvin vote downstate. You could effectively run negative or contrast to try and encourage anti-Irvin voters to split their choice more equitably between Bailey/Sullivan/Schimpf. If they really do have money left and are choosing none of the above I’d be baffled by that strategy.

Comment by The Captain Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 3:49 pm
=Even if there aren’t persuadables, I would want to make sure I don’t lose vote share downstate which could be the result of going dark outside of the Metro this early.=

Adding….all while handing a tailor-made general election argument to Pritzker (abandoning downstate) in the event he gets through the primary

Comment by Joe Bidenopolous Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 3:57 pm
- Meanwhile, the other members of the “slate” have received very little money for their campaigns.

Thoughts? -

Ken Griffin wanted to be able to call up the Governor to complain about trivial things that annoy him and have those calls be answered. That’s all this has ever been about.

Comment by Excitable Boy Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 4:08 pm
It’s a fun puzzle to be sure. But the number floating around when all this started was $300mil for primary and general. It’s hard to believe Griffin would get $50mil deep and walk away unless he thought more money couldn’t do anything. Everyone is kinda proceeding as though Griffin isn’t going to write another check, including the Irvin campaign. The only possible conclusion here is that Griffin thinks the race is over.

Comment by vern Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 4:11 pm
if he can’t get revenge on the guy who dared to make him pay more in taxes.

-
He wants revenge from Pritzker taking Rauner put.

Comment by Real Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 4:20 pm
*out

Comment by Real Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 4:20 pm
=== Thoughts? ===

They are throwing in the towel. The people running the Irvin-Bourne campaign don’t think they have a remote chance of winning, and they certainly cannot convince their donors.

I hope they have told the candidates.

It is good they stopped attacking the eventual nominee, Darren Bailey. I always thought it was his race to lose. I also think he will do better statewide than a lot of pundits expect, probably not much worse than Rauner, but of course that is bad news for the rest of the statewide ticket, who will go down with him.

There is a silver lining for Republicans in the legislature, however.

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 5:30 pm
===and they certainly cannot convince their donors.===

Donor.

Comment by 47th Ward Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 5:39 pm
I think they should have tried having more ads with Irvin smiling. Might have helped.

Comment by Friendly Bob Adams Thursday, Jun 9, 22 @ 6:46 pm