Some
stories are springing up this morning about the amount of money Arizona Senate challenger
Jim Pederson was able to raise during this last quarter:
$723,302.02.
Yeah ... that IS a good quarter. More over the jump.
Over 700k is a REMARKABLE number when you consider two things:
- Pederson's opponent Senator Kyl - using all the powers of incumbency, and cashing in favors with big oil and pharmaceutical companies - pulled in $873,000. To me, this is a MUCH smaller gap than expected and is a very good sign.
- Pederson officially announced his candidacy last month, meaning he raised this money in something like two to three weeks (a month at most). Compared to candidates like Casey, Pederson has only been out there for a fraction of the time but shows such strong results. I think this TOO is a good sign.
Poor Kyl! As if being "the other John from Arizona" wasn't enough, now it looks like AZ's anonymous Senator has a credible candidate closing in on him.
Update [2005-10-11 10:12:45 by Mister T in AZ]: - Pederson 2006 has a release with info about the quarter online. And for those of you that were wondering, there is NO money from Pederson himself included in the numbers listed.