Sharron Angle is far from the GOP colossus some are making her out to be. Remember, it’s the net, not the gross, that counts in fundraising.
And while it’s true that she raised a healthy $700,000+ in the first quarter for her congressional campaign to replace Rep. Dean Heller, after paying off her debt from her losing race to Harry Reid last year, along with other fundraising expenses to her direct mail firm, Angle reportedly only has $164,000 cash left on hand to actually spend.
That’s not going to scare anyone out.
But from a political standpoint, also consider this: The biggest under-reported story on Angle’s GOP primary nomination in last year’s Senate race was that she was NOT the tea party candidate; she was the candidate of the out-of-state Tea Party Express. The local groups were split among the other various candidates. Angle didn’t win them; she was forced on them.
And then there’s the out-of-state Club for Growth organization which pumped close to a million independent expenditure bucks into Angle’s failed congressional campaign in 2006, and another million or so into her failed Senate campaign in 2010.
And then there’s this: Of the $710,000 Angle raised in the first quarter of this year for her current congressional race, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that only $24,030 of it came from Nevadans. That’s a measly 3 percent.
Eventually, some smart political opponent is going to begin pointing out that Sharron Angle has no real financial base of support in Nevada; that it’s all out-of-state special interests that keep artificially buying her credibility and viability.
So, sure, the perception out there is that Angle has to be considered the front-runner at this point. But her support among donors in Nevada is anemic at best, and I suggest that means her vote-getting support has been greatly diminished, as well. Unless Club for Growth believes three times’ the charm and dumps another million into her effort, Sharron Angle might just be heading for her fourth consecutive electoral loss in a row.
Let’s just hope she doesn’t take the GOP with her again like she did last year.
