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Franken raises another $1.9 million; Coleman, $1.7 million
The DFL challenger pulled in $1.9 million for the last three months of 2007. The senator raised $1.7 million in that time.
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WASHINGTON - DFL Senate candidate Al Franken continues to outpace U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman in fundraising, according to end-of-the-year totals released by both politicians' campaigns Monday.
Franken pulled in $1.9 million in the last three months of the year, bringing his 2007 fundraising totals to $7 million. Coleman, a Republican, was right behind him in the fourth quarter, raising $1.7 million to bring his total for the year to $6.6 million. Coleman's total fundraising for this election cycle equals $10 million, according to a campaign spokesman.
It represents another impressive fundraising performance for Franken, the comedian-turned-politician, outpacing Coleman for the third quarter in a row. But Franken's spending habits have kept up with his ability to earn. He ended the year with about $3.1 million in the bank. Coleman has $6 million in cash on hand.
One of Franken's fundraising strategies has been to elicit small donations from several people he can go back to multiple times to ask for additional money, said Franken spokesman Andy Barr.
"We in no way are claiming that we're going to have more money than Norm Coleman," Barr said. "He'll have as much money as he wants to have. But we're going to have enough to mount a serious, statewide campaign."
Franken now has 81,000 donors -- 15,000 of whom are Minnesotans -- who have made more than 100,000 contributions, Barr said. Coleman's campaign said he had more than 18,500 individual Minnesotan contributors.
In keeping with the trend of extremely early campaigning for the 2008 race, Franken told supporters in a YouTube video that he will start rolling out his campaign television ads in a matter of weeks. The ads will be focused on introducing Franken to all Minnesotans, Barr said.
"We're going to start talking to general election voters who maybe haven't made it out to a rally or haven't taken the time to look at his website and learn about his policy positions yet," he said.
Coleman campaign staffer Tom Erickson said there no plans to begin airing ads yet.
"With decisions like this to run ads so early, it's not a surprise that we have twice the money in the bank Al Franken has," he said.
During a call with reporters about his trip to Iraq, Coleman said it was unfortunate that fundraising took time away from more worthy pursuits.
"I just think we spend too much time raising money," Coleman said. "I'm in Iraq and I'm meeting with leadership in Iraq --that's important stuff."
Franken is battling Mike Ciresi, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Jim Cohen and Dick Franson for the DFL nomination to take on Coleman. According to filings from the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30, Ciresi had raised just over $1 million and had about $600,000 in cash on hand. Since Nelson-Pallmeyer didn't enter the race until October, his fundraising information is unavailable.
Neither Ciresi nor Nelson-Pallmeyer had released his year-end campaign figures Monday. They have until Jan. 31 to report their figures to the Federal Election Commission.
The Associated Press contributed to this report Nina Petersen-Perlman • 202-408-2723
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