Primary votes ain’t cheap in Mesa
Posted by: Donna
The SOS site has a new feature that lets you compare candidate expenditures side by side. I’m goofing around on it, calculating what a vote is worth these days in various lege districts. http://www.azsos.gov/cfs/CompareCommitteesSearchCandidate.aspx
Let’s take the LD 18 Senate race, where Russell Pearce was opposed by well-funded Kevin Gibbons. Gibbons spent $63,502.60 and got a total of 2587 votes. That works out to about $25 per vote. That’s not counting the hefty independent expenditures in that district. They may beef up the price tag of a Mesa vote considerably. Pearce (running Clean Elections with matching funds) spent $80,820.09 and got 5717 votes. Works out to around $14 per vote. Democrat Judah Nativio was lean and mean, spending a paltry $9265.31 in his uncontested primary. That’s a mere $3.61 for each of his 2564 votes.
LD 4 was a lot easier on the piggy banks of its politicians. All the Senate candidates ran Clean Elections but Jack Harper spent $59,649.61 for his 16037 votes, for a paltry $3.71 per vote. His opponent John Zerby spent $22,448.09 on his 7056 votes, for an even more parsimonious $3.18 per vote (though that doesn’t include independent expenditures on his behalf). Democrat Rob Boehlke brought in the rear, spending wise. He spent $16,264.07 for his 9300 votes. That’s roughly $1.75 per vote.
Note that these calculations are based on August 21 reports so averages may be higher. I expect that they are in Kevin Gibbons’ case. Seriously, they could have hired me as a consultant for half whatever it was and I would’ve told them not to waste their time in that race.
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