PA-Sen: Q1: Sestak Brings In $640K, Has $1.7 Million COH

SestakThe final pre-primary top-line fundraising numbers for Joe Sestak have been revealed.

According to Laura Olson of the Morning Call, the former Congressman raised $640,000 from January 1st to April 6th.

Over that time period he spent almost $1.5 million, leaving him with $1.7 million cash on hand.

This latest total is not only less than McGinty’s $1.8 million haul but also behind the $830K brought in by a pro-Sestak Super PAC. It seems that the Super PAC’s efforts are helping Sestak close the gap as the campaign enters its final days.

The full FEC filings are set to be released today and we hope to have detailed reports soon.

Sestak is running against former Chief of Staff to Gov. Wolf Katie McGinty and Braddock Mayor John Fetterman in the Senate Democratic primary on April 26th.

9 Responses

  1. McGinty looks sure to lose to Sestak. She really needs to work on running for something smaller, like Mayor, or, giving her the benefit of my doubts, for Congress. But for her to assume she is ready to be a Senator, Governor, or President is very delusional.

  2. Waste of Dem cash against another Dem, as others have noted. Sestak will prevail, because more PA Dem Primary voters will vote for him. And we Dems will have wasted millions we will need to fight Toomey’s $10M or whatever he has now.

    I submitted this to PennLive. It hasn’t run yet:

    ###

    To: letters@pennlive.com
    Subject: 189 word LTE – Sestak vs The Democratic Machine
    Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2016 16:14:39 +0000

    The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is spending $425,000 against Democratic candidate, Admiral Joe Sestak, for Senate. DSCC is allowed to spend a TOTAL of $1.9M on both the Primary and General election. Toomey is one of the most vulnerable Republican Senators up for election; by many accounts the most vulnerable incumbent. His campaign is also very wealthy.

    Democrats will need to spend cash against Toomey – who has multiples the cash of any Dem – regardless who we run.

    Instead, we spend it on a candidate who is trailing by well into double digits, for the Primary of this month, whose own fundraising is as flatlined as her polling, and who loses to Toomey worse than Sestak (who is within striking distance).

    That decision shows horrible leadership and horrible representation of we rank and file Democrats, who have polled that we overwhelmingly prefer Sestak in our spot.

    I suspect some of that outside influence many claim is a healthy, unavoidable part of our proud democratic republic.

    Please donate if you can to Admiral Sestak, so that we might fight back against our own Democratic party money, mostly from outside of PA.

    ~ Steve Todd
    Dauphin County Democratic Committee, Derry Precinct 12

  3. Fact Check: Sestak has been running for US Senate for 7 years straight. Sestak has done a thousand pop in 5 minute show ups for Democratic events in the State. He still cannot shake McGinty. She is out raising him and out working Sestak in the last month. At debates she has done very well where Sestak has done poorly. McGinty is now despite what the expert polls show in a toss up with Sestak. Joe is Joe. He doesn’t like opposition and he tends to become distracted and prone to mistakes. Of course if he loses this race he will blame everyone from the Democratic Party to the interns in his campaign. MvGinty is a professional. Do not be surprised when she sends Sestak home to Virginia on 4/26/16.

  4. It’s hard for me to be critical of the DSCC because I believe in the principles of the Democratic Party and regularly vote Democratic but, to me, the DSCC is so wrong in regard to Joe Sestak. They are forgetting that it is the people who the DSCC leadership ultimately reports to not the other way around. It is my desire to see the party leaders reminded that, in the final analysis, the will of the people can prevail over massive media buys.

  5. No doubt in my mind, McGinty will LOSE yet another political contest. What will she run for next—President of the USA? Maybe she should trim her delusional expectations and run for the board of some Fracking Corporation— or perhaps a local elected office like Mayor or member of council. She is in way over her head and her funders are becoming a joke. Her reach certainly exceeds her grasp. What a pitiful individual.

  6. Same Old Same Old-

    Where’s the criticism instead of the hypocrisy for Sestak blowing the 2010 Senate race?

    I don’t disagree that he has the right to run, IF HE ACTUALLY LIVED IN THE STATE. But, he doesn’t.

    However, putting that aside, let’s put to rest the fiction that Joe is any less corrupt/establishment than the worst the DNC and DSCC has to offer, or that Joe has any noble motivations here.

    Joe is a bully (with a Napoleon complex) and an ego that rivals Donald Trump. He didn’t get along with the other congressmen, because he was a first-termer and expected them to salute him. He has a huge sense of unearned entitlement.

    If Joe loses to Toomey (again), the excuses from the Sestak camp should be interesting.

  7. Joe Sestak has every right to run for Senate in 2016. Encouraging an expensive primary senate race is a mistake that the DSCC made. Whatever happened in 2010 no longer matters and using the past to justify creating a costly primary battle in the present makes no sense.

  8. contactsport-

    This is NOTHING compared to all the money Sestak wasted in 2010.

    $4.5 million raised to keep/defend the 7th, pissed away on a senate race
    $2 million raised for new candidate for the 7th (who lost to GOP)

    $10 million in Specter’s cash-on-hand never spend on Toomey

    Additional millions for general, and money diverted from Russ Feingold who might have kept his Senate seat with just another half-million.

    All in all, Sestak’s ego cost us around $20 million, a Senate seat that Specter would have won, and a congressional seat (that we spent $3.5 million to capture in 2006).

    He’s been a blight on this party.

    As for “what will the DSCC say”, how about when Sestak turned away help in 2010 and sunk his own ship? How about DSCC saying: We told you so to him about how he couldn’t win a general election

    What will Sestak say (ie, whom will he blame) if he loses to Toomey again?

    BTW, Sestak’s fundraising for US Senate after 6 years of running, is less than he raised his first time running for congress.

  9. An incredible waste of money, some of it mine, to have to fight this Primary contest. We should have saved our resources to go against Toomey, but the DSCC thinks they know best what is good for us. We’ll see, after Sestak wins this primary. Then what will the DSCC say? or do? after squandering all their resources on McGinty

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  • Will tonight's U.S. Senate debate affect your decision?


    • No. I've already decided on how to cast my vote. (81%)
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