James Craig way behind other top US Senate candidates in fundraising

Former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, despite being considered a top-tier candidate for the Republican nomination to Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat this fall, badly lags his main competitors in terms of fundraising, campaign finance reports filed by Wednesday night's deadline showed.

Craig's report, filed with the Federal Election Commission, indicated he had raised just $60,581 as of the end of 2023 in a race that is guaranteed to cost millions.

Such an anemic report — given the fact that several of his Republican competitors are in far better shape financially — raises questions as to how strong and thorough a campaign Craig will be able to wage, especially with candidates being required to submit 15,000 to 30,000 valid voter signatures in support of their candidacy to the Michigan Secretary of State's Office by April 23. Two years ago, Craig — then also considered a top candidate — failed to submit enough valid signatures to make the GOP ballot for the governor's race.

And while fundraising is far from dispositive in deciding the outcome of every election, it is hugely important in terms both of advertising and of organizing ground efforts to contact and turn out voters, as well as signaling to potential contributors both in the state and out as to how viable a candidate is going to be.

Last October, Craig joined the now-crowded Republican field for the seat being vacated at the end of the year by Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow and given his name recognition, built on his time as Detroit's police chief and an occasional commentator of Fox News and other TV outlets, he was considered a strong candidate. Recent polls have suggested Craig leads the race for the Republican nomination, which will be decided in the Aug. 6 primary.

But financially speaking, he has fallen well behind the rest of the Republican pack in a race for what may be one of the most competitive open Senate races in the country.

In the last three months of 2023, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, of Brighton — who has begun to consolidate much of the institutional and mainstream Republican support behind his campaign — added just over $1 million in contributions to his campaign coffers, bringing his total so far for the election to nearly $1.9 million and ended the period with about $946,000 cash left going forward.

An independent political action committee, or Super PAC, called Great Lakes Conservatives Fund, or GLCF, has also already spent more $1 million on Rogers' behalf.

Meanwhile, Grosse Pointe businessman Sandy Pensler, a late entry into the Senate race in December, filed a report showing he had raised just over $1 million, albeit by lending his campaign all but $1,300 of the total, and ended the year with virtually all of the cash still to be spent on the campaign. Former U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer, of Grand Rapids Township, who entered the race in November, reported raising $508,162 since joining the field, with about $107,000 of that either contributions or loans from himself to the campaign — though with his personal wealth, he could likely provide much more if needed. He ended the year with about $390,000 cash on hand.

But all of those candidates are in far better financial shape at present than Craig, who reported having just $27,800 cash on hand as of Dec. 31, less than even some of the lesser-known candidates.

For instance, State Board of Education member Nikki Snyder, of Dexter, raised nearly $30,000 during the three-month cycle for just over $199,000 total and had just over $93,000 left. Of that, her self-contributions and loans totaled about $37,000. Mid-Michigan businessman Michael Hoover raised just $3,500 between October and December but largely on the strength of the $190,000 loan he gave himself earlier, he still ended the year with about $213,000 in total receipts for his campaign and more than $124,000 still in the bank. And St. Joseph physician Sherry O'Donnell loaned her campaign $92,000 on her way to raising a total of about $135,000 during the three-month period — and $158,000 for the election to date — and had about $93,000 left in the bank as of year's end.

Slotkin continues to overwhelm field in both parties in fundraising

Among the Democrats running to replace Stabenow, U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Lansing, continued to hold a strong and widely expected fundraising advantage over the rest of the field, which saw several candidates drop out in recent months, including former state Rep. Leslie Love, of Detroit; state Board of Education President Pamela Pugh (now running for a U.S. House seat), and Ann Arbor lawyer Zack Burns.

Slotkin, a former acting assistant Defense Department secretary and intelligence officer, has been a prodigious fundraiser since first running for Congress in 2018, and continued to dominate those efforts in both parties, raising more than $2.8 million in the last three months of the year and bringing her total for the election to $11.7 million.

As of Dec. 31, she had more than $6 million in the bank and indicated she has spent far more than the other candidates to date but also had more left than all of the rest in both parties combined.

If there was any surprise among the rest of the Democratic field, it was that Detroit actor Hill Harper, who many consider the top threat to Slotkin in gaining the party's nomination to succeed Stabenow, raised just over $303,000 over the last three months of 2023. That brought his total for the election to just over $1.3 million but unlike the previous three-month period, when he lent his own campaign $250,000 of his own money, Harper didn't up that self-financing amount in the most recent quarter. He ended the year with about $154,000 in the bank.

Meanwhile, it was Dearborn businessman Nasser Beydoun who ended the year in a stronger financial position, having raised just over $457,000 in the three-month period for a campaign total to date of just over $682,000. He ended the year with just over $349,000 in the bank — a far cry from Slotkin's total but a better figure than Harper's.

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: James Craig behind other top US Senate candidates in fundraising