The candidates have filed their "July Periodic" campaign financial disclosures which allow us to examine the total 92AD Democratic primary campaign funds raised and expenditures.
1. The Big Picture (Nov. 1, 2021 - July 15, 2022):
"Start": Abinanti's assembly campaign account cash-on-hand as of 11/1/21 and Shimsky's transfers from her county legislator campaign account. Cash-on-hand (the right column) is the amount of money left in each candidate's campaign account as of July 15.
Abinanti had a financial advantage to start and maintained that advantage with higher fund raising throughout the campaign. In addition, Abinanti also benefitted from greater "outside" spending, as noted in previous posts.
2. Looking closer at funds raised:
Most of Shimsky's funds raised (77%) came from individuals, mostly "large" itemized donors identified on the financial disclosures (generally donors giving $100 more more) and even some "small" non-itemized, unidentified donors. Her reliance on PAC, LLCs (partnerships, generally law firms) and companies was light compared to Abinanti who received 44% of his funds during the campaign from individuals, although he did increase his individual donation pace significantly over the course of the campaign. Shimsky had advantages in both the number of large/itemized donors and a huge margin in in-district itemized donations.
The Ractliffes list the same address in Greenwich CT. The reason for their affiliation with Abinanti (cumulative donations of $16,008) is not known to me. The same can be said for Leah Waldman of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, although her family appears to have real estate interests. The Lawpac, Ractliffe and Waldman donations each exceed the $4,700 campaign donation limit, resulting in a cumulative overage of $9,304 not usable for the primary and to be applied to Abinanti's general campaign account.
Judith McHale was a diplomat in the Obama administration and prominent attorney, as well as a noted friend of Hillary Clinton. As I noted previously, the Kearney family and their business have contributed cumulatively $7,000 to Shimsky's campaign.
3. More About Spending
Damaris Mone is Abinanti's campaign manager. I can't figure out what Robex does related to campaigns. Mad Dog is a campaign consultant (and presumably not Chris Russo).
Red Horse is the top political consultant firm for New York Democratic candidates, and had worked for George Latimer, according to City & State. Ditto Consulting appears on the same City & State list and is a key player in Westchester, having been retained previously by Latimer and Mimi Rocah. Shimsky's working with these consultants shows how connected she is with the Democratic Party establishment.
Abinanti funneled most of his campaign expenses through an AMEX credit card. His financial disclosure filings are confusing, but it appears that he both itemized campaign expenses on his filings and also listed the corresponding credit card payments for those same expenses. Presumably the AMEX payments match up with actual listed campaign expense. It's impossible to tell.
4. How much money was spent on this campaign for each vote?
In the narrowest sense, we have the spending numbers listed in (1) above: Abinanti: $148,768 and Shimsky at $96,131. With the most recent vote totals of Shimsky 5,645 and Abinanti 4,716, we find Shimsky spending a thrifty $17.03 per vote with Abinati paying retail at $31.55 per vote. But as we've discussed in prior posts, the NYC real estate/finance moguls' Voters of NY Inc, PAC invested $28,200 in three mailers to boost Abinanti. The Greenburgh Town Democratic Committee also spent $10,453 on mailers in support of Shimsky. And then there is the shrouded puzzle of how much Abinanti spent on the campaign using his state assembly office funds to pay for well-timed "constituent outreach" mailers and even a robocall. Applying a very modest estimate of $50,000 (we know that Abinanti expensed $77K for "bulk mail" in 2020 and almost $68K in 2021) toward the recent campaign, we can reasonably estimate that Abinanti spent (and had spent on his behalf) a cumulative amount approaching $230,000 toward his failed reelection bid.
Next post: looking at the demographics of who actually voted
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