Ohioans aren’t the only ones laughing at the incompetence of Ed Fitzgerald’s campaign.
Remember two months ago, the Washington Post called his running mate choice the “Worst Rollout of the Year”. This week, Politico takes note of his embarrassing fundraising and names him to a list of 10 fundraising losers.
The latest piece of good news for the governor is a $3.9 million fundraising haul in the past six months of 2013. His Democratic opponent, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, raised only $1.6 million from July through January.
FitzGerald has struggled to gain traction. He recently dumped his running mate, state Sen. Eric Kearney, who came under fire for reportedly failing to pay taxes on his business.
What really sticks out about this list is that Fitzgerald is the only gubernatorial candidate on the list.
What most folks don’t know is that Ed’s fundraising is even more pathetic than it appears. It’s propped up by donations by the state Democratic party, desperate to save face for the bottom of the barrel candidate at the top of their ticket.
Fitzgerald has $1.44 million cash on hand. But he got $645,000 from the Ohio Democratic Party. That’s 45%.
How much of Governor Kasich’s cash on hand came from the Ohio Republican Party? Less than 1%.
Another overlooked fact is that Ed reported fundraising numbers for January, which is optional. Kasich didn’t. If you compare only the required reporting period from July through December, it gets really ugly for Fitz.
Kasich contributions July-December: $3,855,670
Fitzgerald contributions July-December: $846,751
Fitzgerald got outraised 4.5 to 1 in the second half of 2013.
It gets even worse when you take out the state party money.
Kasich contributions July-December (minus ORP): $3,780,670
Fitzgerald contributions July-December (minus ODP): $653,843
That’s almost 6 to 1.
Fitzmentum!