October 23, 2013 04:05 PM UTC

Statewide Candidates Q3 Fundraising: Winners and Losers

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• by: Colorado Pols

For many statewide candidates in Colorado, the Q3 fundraising period was their first full quarter to be shaking out the loose change from supporters and other well-wishers.

The Q3 reports also give us our first chance to take a good look at most of the entire field of candidates, though a couple will keep us waiting another few months (Mike Kopp and Wayne Williams did not file their campaign committee paperwork until after the Q3 deadline).

So who did well, and who laid a big ugly egg? Take a look after the jump to find out.

*Brophy registered his committee on 7/19/13, so he technically didn't have a full 3 months of fundraising (though it's close enough that it likely wasn't an issue).

**Neguse registered his committee on 6/24/13, just a few days before the June 30th cutoff for Q2. His campaign says Neguse raised more than $100k in the last three months, and while that isn't technically accurate, it's only a few extra days. 

A couple of things stand out in looking at the numbers side-by-side. Brophy's Q3, which we covered yesterday, looks even worse when you factor in his expenditures. Not only did Greg Brophy have a terrible quarter in terms of contributions, he also managed to spend $2 out of every $3 dollars raised. If you know you aren't going to have a great quarter, at least make sure you don't account for so many expenditures until October 1st.

Cynthia Coffman is another Republican who has a burn rate that is much too high for this point in the Attorney General's race. Her expenditure rate negates some of the shine of a decent fundraising quarter, and it makes fellow Republican candidate Mark Waller look like an accountant by comparison.

While Brophy and Coffman are spending way too much money compared to what they have raised, at least they're not in as bad a shape as Democratic Treasurer candidate Pat Quinn. For a man who touts his credentials as a certified CPA, he should know better than to be spending a whopping 76% of his contributions. Quinn is the only statewide candidate right now whose total cash-on-hand amount is a 4-digit number.

We've talked already about the whopper of a quarter that Republican Treasurer Walker Stapleton reported, so we won't elaborate further in this space other than to say he is clearly the big "Winner" from Q3.

The biggest "Loser" is also a no-brainer: Democratic Attorney General candidate Don Quick had a horrendous quarter. Despite being the only Democrat running for AG, Quick barely raised more money than the unknown, and overmatched, Pat Quinn. For all intents and purposes, Q3 is probably the death knell for Quick's campaign. He may limp ahead and "win" the Democratic nomination by default if no other Dem decides to enter the race, but Quick has demonstrated after three fundraising periods that he's just not capable of running a serious statewide campaign — at least not now. Big donors and prominent Democratic supporters will almost certainly turn their attention to other races now, which is good news for candidates like Betsy Markey and Joe Neguse.