Republican U.S. Senate nominee Tom Smith raised more money than U.S. Sen. Bob Casey in the third quarter and loaned his campaign another $10 million on top of that, leaving him with more money than the senator for the campaign's last month, according to campaign finance reports released Monday.
The fundraising news arrived on the same day a new independent poll showed Mr. Casey's lead down sharply and the race extremely tight.
The Smith campaign pounced on the fundraising picture and the Allentown Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll that had Mr. Casey up 2 percentage points to portray Mr. Casey's support as eroding.
Mr. Casey's camp quickly pointed to a poll with an 11-point edge for him by a Democratic-leaning pollster, Public Policy Polling, and ripped Mr. Smith for all the money he's loaned his campaign.
Mr. Smith raised $1,643,325 in the three months ending Sept. 30, compared to $1,437,104 for Mr. Casey.
Mr. Casey has still raised more than three times as much from contributors - $11.3 million to $3.1 million - as Mr. Smith, whose $10 million loan raised the total he has loaned his campaign to almost $16.5 million.
"With $17 million in personal money, Tom Smith is almost entirely bankrolling his campaign by himself and with the help of national tea party groups," Casey campaign spokesman Larry Smar said. "His millions can buy attack ads, but it can't cover up his radical tea party agenda."
But the loan meant Mr. Smith had almost $7.1 million left heading into October, compared to only about $5.2 million for Mr. Casey.
Off pace
To date, Mr. Casey's fundraising is also well off his pace in 2006 when he first ran for the Senate. At this point in that campaign, Mr. Casey had raised $14.6 million as a challenger to incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Santorum.
"This latest news spells more trouble for Sen. Casey, who continues to lose support to Tom Smith," Smith campaign manager Jim Conroy said in a statement. "That an incumbent career politician who has taken in millions from special interest PACs (political action committees) was outraised, is even further evidence that Casey's message is falling on deaf ears, (his) record is severely lacking and support is crumbling."
The Smith campaign pointed to the Morning Call/Muhlenberg poll, which had Mr. Casey up 41 percent to 39 percent. The poll surveyed 438 likely voters between Wednesday and Sunday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
The Muhlenberg poll was the first truly independent poll released in recent weeks after a spate of partisan polls that showed the race tightening.
The Casey campaign countered by pointing out that Muhlenberg issued an October 2006 poll that had Mr. Casey ahead of Mr. Santorum only 5 points. Mr. Casey won by 17.4 points. The campaign also pointed to a Public Policy poll issued Monday that had Mr. Casey ahead 50 percent to 39 percent and a week-old Philadelphia Inquirer poll that had Mr. Casey ahead 48 percent to 38 percent. The Public Policy poll surveyed 500 likely voters between Friday and Sunday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
Mr. Smar said Mr. Smith had more money in actual contributions because he had raised so little from contributors to that point.
"There was a lot of low-hanging fruit," he said. "Voters are rejecting Smith's tea party agenda and false attack ads in favor of Bob Casey's record of delivering for Pennsylvania's middle class families and working across party lines to get things done for Pennsylvania."
Mr. Conroy made a similar statement on behalf of his candidate.
"Voters are clearly viewing Casey's false and misleading attacks as not credible and are turning to Tom Smith, a self-made proven job creator with a common-sense plan to grow the economy and create jobs," he said.
Other races
Meanwhile, in the three local congressional races, the two incumbent congressmen and the Democratic lawyer favored in the other race reported strong fundraising quarters.
In the race for the 17th Congressional District seat that includes Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston and Pottsville, Laureen Cummings, the Republican candidate, raised $15,749 in the third quarter, pushing her total so far to $21,942 and leaving her with $9,829 in cash. That was dwarfed many times by the fundraising of her Democratic opponent, Matt Cartwright, who raised another $253,926, giving him a total of $814,087 raised so far and cash on hand of $167,951.
In the race for the 10th Congressional District, which includes the Abingtons and parts of northeastern and southeastern Lackawanna County plus Susquehanna and Wayne counties, U.S. Rep. Tom Marino raised another $137,069, bringing his total for the two-year election cycle to $773,075. He had $207,102 left.
His opponent, Democrat Phil Scollo, raised $66,090, giving him $144,086 raised so far and leaving him with $49,033.
In the contest for the 11th Congressional District, which includes most of Luzerne County, Rep. Lou Barletta maintained a hefty war chest, picking up another $182,937 in contributions and leaving him with $351,225 in cash on hand.
Democratic opponent Gene Stilp did not provide his campaign finance report to The Times-Tribune on Monday.
Efforts to reach him were unsuccessful. Mr. Stilp filed his reports on time previously with the commission, which sometimes posts reports online several days after the deadline.
The reports are not required to be made available to local election officials.
Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@ timesshamrock.com