By Alex Roarty
PoliticsPA Staff Writer
roarty@politicspa.com

UPDATED: Campaign finance forms provided by Specter’s campaign show the senator, while raising nearly $1.2 million, also returned about $600,000 in contributions last cycle.

The documents show he’s had to return $1.1 million in contributions this election cycle.

Minus the refunds, Specter’s total haul was just $541,000 last quarter. Because his campaign spent about $600,000 during the same span, the senator actually has less money on hand now than he did at the end of the third quarter. He has about $8.66 million on hand now, as opposed $8.71 at the end of the third quarter.

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U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter’s re-election campaign said Saturday it raised $1.15 million in the fourth fiscal quarter and had about $8.66 million on hand to end the year.

Specter’s fourth-quarter haul was about $500,000 less than likely Republican nominee Pat Toomey, who raised $1.67 million. The incumbent still has roughly $6 million more on hand than Toomey, but he will likely have to use much of it to fend off Democratic challenger Joe Sestak in the primary.

Sestak’s campaign hasn’t released its fourth-quarter fundraising numbers yet.

“The Senator’s campaign is well situated financially to win a contested primary and then beat the GOP nominee in the fall,” Campaign Manager Chris Nicholas said in a statement.

On Saturday, CQ Politics changed Pennsylvania’s Senate race from ‘leans Democrat” to “tossup.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous, PA Reports, PoliticsPA Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.