House DFL Caucus has more than $1.2 million in the bank for campaign

Posted at 1:56 PM on July 30, 2012 by Catharine Richert
Filed under: Campaign 2012, Campaign 2012: Minn. House Races

Minnesota's House DFL Caucus has raised more than $2 million in what is shaping up to be a competitive battle for the state Legislature, nearly $1.3 million of that since the beginning of the year.

House Minority Leader Rep. Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, said the numbers show momentum among voters and put his caucus in a strong position going into the fall.

But Thissen still expects a tough fight for the majority.

"I don't have any illusions that the Republicans are going to spend a lot of money in Minnesota to try and retain their majorities, so it's going to continue to be a very competitive environment," Thissen said. "But these numbers that we're putting up put us in a position to make the kind of investments we need to make to get our message out to Minnesotans about what our priorities are.

It's a record fundraising cycle for the Caucus compared to the last two elections. In 2010, for instance, House Democrats had raised only $813,140 in the same period of time. And at this time in 2010, they had only $773,473 in cash-on-hand.

This time around, the contributions have come from 6,300 individual donors, according to a House DFL Caucus press release.

Candidates and parties are required to file their first round of fundraising numbers for the year with the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure board today, but their reports will not be on-line until Tuesday, July 31.

So far, House and Senate Republicans and Senate DFLers have not released their fundraising reports. We'll update the blog as they come in.

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