Trailing in polls, Sherman close to keeping pace with Sununu on raising money
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Aug. 25—CONCORD — Democratic candidate for governor Tom Sherman badly trails Gov. Chris Sununu in the polls, but he is close to keeping up with the incumbent when it comes to campaign fundraising.
Sherman this year has raised about $100,000 more than Sununu and as the Sept. 13 primary approaches, each has nearly identical war chests — roughly $725,000.
Overall, Sununu raised more than Sherman, $1.46 million to $1.18 million, and that's because the governor moved a $369,000 surplus from his last campaign into the current one.
Since June, Sherman, of Rye, a state senator, has raised $362,668 while the three-term governor raised $208,296 in the same period.
Leading Democrats knew this was a strong suit for Sherman, who set records in two straight campaigns running and winning his Seacoast Senate seat.
Conversely, Sununu has never been known as a national phenomenon when it comes to raising money.
Sununu won for the first time in 2016 after forces backing his opponent outspent him by close to a 2-1 margin.
All state candidates had to file campaign finance reports with Secretary of State David Scanlan's office detailing what they have raised and spent since the last report in June.
According to the reports, Sherman's campaign claims it has more than 12 times the number of donors of Sununu.
State law requires the identification of all contributors who give more than $50 to a candidate. Sherman's campaign claims it has 9,811 of those while the Sununu campaign reported it has 776 named donors to date.
Over the past few months, Sununu has frequently traveled outside the state to give speeches, make media appearances and campaign for other GOP candidates.
According to his report, since June the campaign paid out $22,312 for airfare on four different airlines and for car rental expenses.
Medicaid vendor chips in big
The biggest recent donors to Sununu were executives with Centene Corp., one of the three companies providing managed care services to low-income families on Medicaid.
The contracts are the largest in all of state government.
Executives and family members since June gave Sununu $23,500 or nearly 12% of all he had raised during that time.
Outgoing Health and Human Services Commissioner Lori Shibinette has said the next Legislature should seriously consider whether to continue managed care or go to another model for delivering health care to those on Medicaid.
Other big donors to Sununu included the American Property Casualty Association ($10,000); Capone Iron Works Corp. North Woods of Berlin ($2,500); Cigna Employees Corp. PAC ($5,000); former Congressman and Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood ($3,000); Whitman Operating Co. of West Harrison, New York ($7,500); Madison, Connecticut, consultant Robert Stefanowski ($10,000); Nashua developer Tom Monahan ($7,500); and Rusty McLear of Meredith ($2,500), one of the Gunstock Area Commission members conservatives bounced from the board.
The Sununu campaign paid $15,000 in consulting to C. Landon Parvin, who is known as Nancy Reagan's favorite speech writer, and who worked for the late President Ronald Reagan.
The biggest donors who gave $5,000 each to Sherman of late include former Gov. John Lynch; Nancy Borden of New Castle; former House Democratic Leader and Sen. Peter Burling; retiring Sen. Jay Kahn of Keene; Peter Goodwin of Wolfeboro; and Barbara Carpenter of Newmarket.
Sherman has also built a national fundraising base of supporters in the health care community as a gastroenterologist for 30 years and former medical director of a Virginia hospital.
The two major political parties have similar amounts in the bank although they have spent at varying rates.
The Democratic State Committee has outraised the Republican State Committee by more than a 3-1 margin, $1.8 million for the Democrats to $490,000 for the GOP.
But Democrats have already spent $1.4 million or nearly eight times what the Republicans have ($189,000).
As a result, Democrats have $393,000 left over while Republicans aren't far behind with $340,000.
