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Wagner spends more than he raises; $673K on hand

Auditor General Jack Wagner continued his struggle to build the kind of campaign war chest that will allow his gubernatorial candidacy to be competitive this year, raising less money than he spent during the first three months of this year, according to campaign finance data.

Wagner raised about $219,000 from January through March, but he spent about $222,000. That leaves him with about $673,000 in cash on hand six weeks before the four-way Democratic primary—about $3,000 less than he had at the end of the year.

The information was disclosed in Wagner’s campaign finance report filed Tuesday. His southwest rival Dan Onorato is expected to file with about 10 times as much cash on hand. Wagner has repeatedly said he’ll have enough money to be competitive, but his most recent numbers indicate that he’ll be unable to mount much a sustained advertising blitz in all but the cheapest of the state’s media markets.

Wagner did rack up some relatively large contributions from corporate and union political action committees, including $10,000 from the electrical worker’s union in Philadelphia, $25,000 from the state’s largest union of government employees and $4,000 from a PAC controlled by Range Resources, an energy company drilling in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale.

His expenditures were mostly for basic campaign staffing, with some of the largest recipients being campaign manager Richard Bryers; communications and policy director Clint Eisenhower; and Bronstein & Weaver, the political mail and strategy firm consulting the campaign.

Click here to download Wagner’s full campaign finance report.

April 6, 2010 at 1:22 pm

--Dan Hirschhorn

Tags: Jack Wagner

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