Well, for all the concerns and hand-wringing of various Democrats over the past half-year, it seems that Howard Dean is performing just fine as chief fundraiser for the DNC. Here is the FEC report:
During the first six months of 2005, federally registered Republican party committees raised $142.7 million and spent $98.1 million, while the Democratic committees raised $86.3 million and spent $60.2 million. This is a 2% increase in receipts for Republicans when compared to the same period in 2003 and a 53% increase for Democrats. When compared to the same period in 2001, the last non-presidential cycle, Republicans registered a 50% increase in federal receipts, while the Democrats showed a 113% increase.
The Republican party, quite clearly, has a huge lead in fundraising, but Democrats are closing the gap decently enough. Interestingly, the gap used to be much, much larger—poking around through the charts, back in 1989 the RNC was raising six times as much money as the DNC ($18 million to about $3 million.) This despite the fact that the party is out of power and presumably gets fewer donations from corporate donors. (Although, Democratic votes for the recent bankruptcy bill no doubt helped peel off a few bucks from MNBA and other financial companies.) Anyway, a lot of money sloshing around there…
