Bachmann spends most per vote among MN congressional hopefuls

Posted at 5:00 PM on November 12, 2012 by Catharine Richert (5 Comments)
Filed under: Campaign 2012, Campaign 2012: U.S. House

There are endless ways to slice and dice the numbers behind the 2012 election, but one way to ascertain the cost of the campaigns is to look at how much each candidate spent to win a vote.

Among the candidates vying for a spot in the U.S. House of Representatives, Republican U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann comes out on top having spent more than $11 million from her congressional account. She received 179,241 votes, just a little more than 50 percent of the 6th Congressional District's support.

That amounts to around $65 per vote, according to MPR News' analysis - that's more than any other congressional hopeful, and once again underscores how tight this race was for her compared to her prior elections in the 6th.

That number is a rough figure because Bachmann's presidential bid complicated her finances.

Bachmann spent more than 7 times more than her DFL opponent Jim Graves, who spent roughly $8.70 on each vote.

The below spreadsheet shows where the state's other congressional candidates stack up. Coming in second is 3rd Congressional District Republican U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen who spent $10.55 on each vote.

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who ran a statewide re-election campaign, is not included in the below spreadsheet, but she spent only $2.66 on each of her 1.8 million votes. Her opponent, Kurt Bills, raised far less than Klobuchar and spent only 92 cents on each of his 868,000 votes.

The numbers only include spending through Oct. 17; candidates almost certainly spent more in the final days of the campaign. The data comes from the Federal Elections Commission and the Minnesota Secretary of State's website.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said that Bachmann had spent $120 on each vote. That figure mistakenly included spending from Bachmann's presidential campaign account. The numbers have been updated to reflect total disbursements from her congressional campaign only.

Comments (5)

And this is news, how??? We just went through a presidential election of more than $2 Billion.

Posted by Bob | November 13, 2012 8:21 AM

I am more interested in the Muslim Brotherhood that has infiltrated our government from the White House on down.

Posted by Frank Livingston | November 13, 2012 8:32 AM

Good one Frank. That is a funny comment right there. You sure have your finger on the pulse of reality.

Posted by Dave E. | November 13, 2012 11:00 AM

Dave: I guess you do not read much of our history do you? Have you read anything on our Barbary Wars? Who said this, when and why? "The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every musselman [muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

It was said to two of our Founding Fathers and former presidents in 1786 when they met with an ambassador to arrange for his pirates/terrorists to stop hijacking our merchant ships and selling the sailors at slave auctions. They asked the ambassador why they did this since we had done nothing to them and our nation was not even formed yet. This

As you read the letter keep asking yourself if you see any similarities between 1786 and today’s challenges with the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating or government and trying to change it. What would be the result 226-years later if our voters unknowingly voted for a president that honestly believed what the ambassador meant and set about trying to change us? Would he try to influence our policies and procedures starting with our relationship and involvement of the United Nations and the larges Muslim voting block in the UN, the 57 nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)? Would he have his Secretary of State agree to allowing Shariah/Islamic law to come into America by allowing UN Resolution 1618? The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and its Role in Enforcing Islamic Law
I suggest you read the entire letter, ask yourself some questions about what happened then and what is happening now. Are we experiencing the development of a worldwide Caliphate mentioned by the Tripoli ambassador?
The actual letter has been photocopied and it is here: http://memory.loc.gov/master/mss/mtj/mtj1/005/0400/0430.jpg
The typed version is here: http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~argyll/From%20JOHN%20ADAMS%20And%20THOMAS%20JEFFERSON.pdf

Posted by Frank Livingston | November 13, 2012 11:45 AM

Hi Catherine,

Should the dollars spent include monies that were donated back to the respective political party's campaigns?

IMO, if the intent is to show how much was spent by the candidate for his/her campaign, then those should be subtracted. For example, John Kline transferred $85,000 to the RNCC during the reporting period that was used ... and I doubt that any of the money was spent by the RNCC on his behalf but instead to help other Republicans (like Chip Cravaack). It would appear that Mr. Kline actually spend more last election, yet then he "donated" to the RNCC $347,600 ... if you take that amount out, the Kline/vote investment would be lower.
Also, since this is not comparing apples-to-apples since last election was for the entire year, and Mr. Kline has more than $1 million that could be spent, my gut tells me that a big chunck will be donated to the RNCC ... yet, as presented it will infer that Mr. Kline will be spending more to get himself elected when he will be sending monies outside of his district.

Second, have you looked at the candidate's PAC to see what they did with their monies ? For example, Erik Paulsen has an ICE PAC, John Kline has Freedom & SecurityPAC, Tim Walz has American Dream PAC, Collin Peterson has Valley PAC, Michele Bachman has MICHELE PAC ... and if you look, you will notice that Mr. Kline used his PAC to transfer $10,000 to Mr. Cravaack's campaign while Mr. Paulsen transfered $5,000 for Mr. Cravaack.

Regardless, there is a lot of money being collected ... we need more reporting like you are doing to educate the voters.

Posted by Mac Hall | November 13, 2012 8:54 PM

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