As early voting begins, campaign financial disclosures for the second quarter are due for the candidates.
Federal candidate disclosures are due on Monday, but those for state and county candidates were due this week. For the contested state races, at least, most candidates didn’t see too big of a change from their starting to ending balances, but there are still numbers of note.
Currently, the most contested race in the state primary is for the state House of Representatives District 60 seat, formerly held by Democrat Darren Jernigan. With two candidates hoping to get Republican voters to turn out and three Democrats aiming for the nomination, the wealth is spread out across the campaigns.
Democrat Shaundelle Brooks is outearning her opponents on either side of the aisle, getting $52,865 in contributions this quarter. Her closest competition in the primary seems to be Tyler Brasher, who brought in $41,430, while the third Democrat, John Parrish, has not yet filed a second quarter disclosure. Brooks also outspent Brasher $47,626 to $29,969, respectively. She’s also ending the quarter with $11,000 more in the bank than he has.
On the Republican side, the financial competition doesn’t seem so stiff. Chad Bobo earned more than $34,000 in contributions, while Christopher Huff brought in around $3,800. Huff also spent nearly all of that this quarter, ending with $806 in the bank. Bobo spent around $18,572, leaving him with around $16,000 going into the next quarter.
The person with the largest change in fund balance this quarter is District 56 Rep. Bob Freeman, who faces challenger Nick Forster-Benson in the Democratic primary. He started the quarter with the second-largest balance on hand already with $328,145.92, and ended the quarter with $386,777.28 in the bank. He’s also lapping his opponent by tens of thousands of dollars in contributions, earning more than $90,000 this quarter while Forster-Benson earned just over $1,000. Freeman is also outspending Forster-Benson.
At the end of the quarter, the person with the most money on hand is District 52 Rep. Justin Jones, who came in with a starting balance of more than $958,000, earned just over $8,000, spent around $34,000 and still ended with more than $932,000. While he’s in the negative for the quarter, he doesn’t seem to be in any trouble — especially because he doesn’t face a primary challenger. His presumed Republican opponent (as she’s the only one vying for the nomination), Laura Nelson, has also remained steady in her funding, though it's hundreds of thousands below Jones with an ending balance this month at $8,139.47.
The county general election is all but decided in most races, although the race for the Metro Nashville Public Schools District 1 is still hot. Republican Demytris Savage-Short’s disclosure for the quarter shows she brought in $2,537, spent around $2,000 and still ended with nearly $2,500 on hand. Democrat Robert Taylor’s disclosure still was not available online as of 1:30 p.m. Friday. However, he had ended the first quarter well ahead of the Republican with $6,512 on hand.
This article originally appeared in our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
