Fundraising Update 11/6

Cross posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:

Recent campaign finance reports show that, as of 4pm today, a 10th legislative contest has crossed the $1 million threshold. With the addition of the 101st District contest between incumbent Bob Flider and challenger Dick Cain, five contests for House seats and five for Senate seats have candidates with combined fundraising in excess of $1,000,000. Previous elections have seen no more than 7 contests cost that much. The expensive races are:

52nd Senate (Myers/Frerichs/Parnarauskis): $1.9M
49th Senate (Richey/Demuzio): $1.6M
34th Senate (Syverson/Lewandowski): $1.2M
42nd Senate (Wintermute/Holmes): $1.1M
22nd Senate (Roth/Noland): $1.1M

107th House (Granberg/Cavaletto): $1.7M
92nd House (Spears/Schock): $1.4M
91st House (Smith/Dagit): $1.4M
71st House (Boland/Haring): $1.3M
101st House (Flider/Cain): $1.1M

The 5th District Appellate Court race continues to grow. Appointed incumbent Steve McGlynn holds a 2:1 fundraising advantage, but Circuit Court judge Bruce Stewart reported $50K over the weekend. Combined, the race stands at $3.3M since the candidates declared. So far, the Illinois Republican Party has given McGlynn $1.2M, while spending just $300K on Judy Baar Topinka, their nominee for governor. The McGlynn spending came in two donations, each made within days of receiving comparable infusions from a U.S. Chamber organization, the Institute for Legal Reform.

Other observations:

* Most legislative leaders seem to have put a little money behind each of their candidates. House Republican Leader Tom Cross is the exception: he put two really big bets on challengers ($200K to Steve Haring and $138K to John Cavaletto) rather than give middling amounts to all of the candidates he's been supporting. We'll see tomorrow how that worked for him.

* Rep. Mike McAuliffe reported $719.49 from the House Republican Campaign Committee for "payroll." Former House Republican Leader Lee Daniels shuttered the old HRCC last January; HRCC showed no expenditure that would account for this listing. It's probably HRO giving to McAuliffe, who just got nostalgic about the name.