Shared content from Carolina Public Press. By Michael Gebelein
Roy Cooper and Pat McCrory have collectively raised more than $20 million in their race for the governorship of North Carolina, according to campaign finance reports filed this summer.
Final reports won’t be filed until just before Election Day in November.
Cooper raised more than $5 million in the second quarter of 2016, from March 1 through June 30. McCrory raised $3.1 million during that same reporting period.Cooper, North Carolina’s attorney general, has the fundraising edge in his quest to unseat McCrory, the sitting Republican governor.
Both candidates appear to have kept their spending during the second quarter relatively low, opting to maintain a significant war chest headed into the final months before the election. Cooper had $9.4 million available at the end of the reporting period, McCrory almost $6.3 million.
The candidates might have been holding tight to their purse strings, but outside groups certainly aren’t.
The Center for Public Integrity reported in July that multiple activist organizations had spent almost $4 million on TV advertising related to the governor race, despite minimal spending by the candidates.
WRAL has reported that the candidates spent $5 million on advertising during the first three weeks of September. Groups like the Republican Governors Association and Americans for Prosperity weighed in on the race, in McCrory’s favor, early in the election cycle with TV advertising.
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