Missing Numbers.
The press release masquerading as inside memo syndrome continues. The Simmons Senate campaign let loose a long one on “the state of the race” that buries the news that the campaign raised only $550,000 in the first quarter of the year. That’s less than a third of what Democrat Blumenthal pulled in and less than 10% of what Linda McMahon poured into her free-spending campaign. The trend for Simmons is in the wrong direction: it’s his worst quarterly report of the campaign. The former congressman could be collateral damage of the collapse of the Dodd campaign.
Simmons campaign manager Jim Barnett’s memo to Simmons says they have over $1.4 million on hand. Outstanding debts are not mentioned. Like every active campaign, they’ve probably got some. Why not attach the campaign finance report to the memo? With fundraising on a downward trajectory, Simmons will have to stretch what’s he’s got to win the May convention and be competitive in August’s primary. Simmons will need money to make McMahon’s money an issue.
The over-the-top missive from Barnett leaps around the logic board. There’s no reason to believe the claim that Peter Schiff will take support from McMahon rather than Simmons. Among Republicans, Simmons has seen his numbers collapse even as other Republicans exit the race and McMahon continues to gain supporters with an avalanche of mail to GOP households. Painting Simmons as left of the Connecticut Republican mainstream on several hot-button issues seems to be working in the hothouse of contemporary politics. There’s no indication that McMahon will depart from a plan that’s working. While Barnett dismisses McMahon’s primary lead in recent polls as “temporary,” there’s no evidence that it’s more ephemeral than the one Simmons luxuriated in last year.
Every Republican candidate in a statewide primary faces the challenge of reaching party members in Fairfield County. That’s where nearly 40% of Connecticut Republican primary voters are concentrated. The candidate who can buy New York media enjoys a crucial advantage. Simmons’s fundraising numbers suggest that market will be beyond him in any meaningful way. He may grace television screens on “Live at Five” and “Good Morning, New York”, but it’ll be in the grainy photos of McMahon’s commercials.
Simmons is well-known in eastern Connecticut, but registered Republicans can be thin on the ground in large swathes of that section of the state. The largest town in the district Simmons represented in Congress, as reported earlier, has become a hub of Schiff supporters. The Illinois primaries in February indicate jazzed Republican voters may turnout in higher than average numbers after two dispiriting election cycles. That adds uncertainty to any calculation but also means more money to reach the increased pool of likely voters. That’s another missing number.