If freshman Sen. Mark Grisanti is the first political protection priority for Senate Republicans, the campaign bankrolls aren’t showing it – yet.
The latest disclosure reports with the state Board of Elections show the Senate Republican Campaign Committee has spent $90,000 the past several months on the Buffalo Republican’s re-election efforts.
That is well below the $271,000 the central campaign account unloaded on the campaign for GOP challenger Bob Cohen in Westchester County, $222,000 for incumbent Sen. Roy McDonald of Saratoga County and $186,000 for GOP challenger Eric Ulrich in Queens.
In the head-to-head contest in next week’s GOP primary between Grisanti and his Republican challenger, Kevin Stocker, Grisanti has a comfortable lead in the money race. The incumbent lawmaker has $72,000 in the bank – after having spent $480,000 on various campaign expenses over the past year. Since the end of January, Grisanti spent $232,000. In the past two weeks, Grisanti – illustrating some concern, nonetheless, about the under-funded Stocker – spent $138,000, with most of that going for advertising, mailings and consultants. [There are rumblings in conservative quarters that Stocker is being taken seriously by Grisanti forces.]
Stocker, however, is having cash flow problems with just a week before next Thursday’s primary. His new report shows that he is $626.33 in the red. In the most recent two-week reporting period, Stocker raised $2,650 while spending $20,500, leaving his campaign, when all previous amounts are factored in, with a cash deficit.
-- Tom Precious
