CA-Sen: Tom Campbell Has Raised $516K for Senate Primary Race

Tom Campbell has released funraising numbers for his U.S. Senate candidacy and while they are noteworthy, the figures are certainly NOT awe-inspiring.

Former congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Tom Campbell announced today that he has raised $700,000 for his campaign since switching a month ago to the Senate race from a bid for the governor’s office.

Campbell, a Republican, made the switch Jan. 14 and since then he has raised $516,092 for the June primary and $190,500 for the general election, his campaign announced Friday.

Campbell’s main GOP rival in the race to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer, millionaire businesswoman Carly Fiorina, has raised more than $1 million in the race and lent her campaign $2.5 million.

Campbell has raised more than DeVore but less than Fiorina. What a shocker – NOT. Since DeVore only has about $100K on hand, it won’t take much to beat him. But, Carly, who only announced her candidacy in November, has done better – even without her own money included. But, adding her own cash, Carly is way ahead and, of course, she has more disposable funds should she need them.

Since it is Friday afternoon, news dumping time for politicos, it  can only be surmised that Campbell’s campaign churned out this fundraising revelation so nobody could write how anemic the numbers really are. But, maybe they released them too early because pundits are already asking whether the Campbell campaign cash is sufficeint enough?

GOP US Senate candidate Tom Campbell has raised $706,592 since leaving the Guv’s race to challenge OC Assemblyman Chuck DeVore and ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina, according to Team Campbell.

A nice chunk, certainly compared to the Whitman pocket change Tom was raising in his Guv bid. But it’s not on pace to meet Campbell’s stated desire to raise $7 to $10 million by the June primary. Oh, yeah,only $516,092 of the above total can be used for the primary.

Speaking of Whitman and Campbell — and we know some of you are — Campbell has a couple of Whitman Finance Committee donors dropping cash on him, like diet guru Jenny Craig and Floyd Kvamme (Partner Emeritus, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers).

Also stuffing Campbell’s pockets: Oakland A’s owner Lew Wolff.

Remember, when we told you that Team Campbell bragged that Fiorina’s Demon Sheep ad helped bring in its best online fundraising day ever? Now it gives us the total: $40,000.

Now that everyone will be watching those Meg Whitman donors, I wonder how that will help Campbell’s fundraising as we get closer to the end of the quarter and the FEC disclosure reports. My bet is what would have been a nice mega cash infusion by Meg’s folks into Campbell’s account will never happen. Oh well, Tom should have accepted some checks when Bob White called on Whitman’s behalf (oh, I guess it was the other way around, my bad.)

Looks like there will be no early television ads for Campbell now. But, then again, Meg’s donor folks can always fund some independent expenditure committees for Tom. I wonder how that will play with California voters?

Stay tuned…..