Every three months, political candidates in South Carolina are required to disclose how much money they raised for their campaigns – and who donated it to them.
Oh, and how much they spent. And who they paid.
In election years, these filings are scrutinized closely in the press – and candidates often attempt to time their disclosures in such a way as to generate maximum media exposure. Or, more often, they engage in delaying tactics as part of a game of “chicken” with their opponents. Once the documents have been submitted to the S.C. State Ethics Commission (SCSEC), campaigns do their best to “spin” the numbers – while defending themselves against attacks from their rivals (who pore through the reports looking for possible vulnerabilities).
In the race for the Democratic nomination for governor, we reported earlier this week on campaign filings from Afghan War veteran and former S.C. House minority leader James Smith – as well as uber-liberal Florence, S.C. attorney Marguerite Willis.
As we reported, Smith has a little over $622,000 to spend over the next two months after bringing in $403,000 during the first quarter of 2018 – most of it on a wave of small dollar donations (Smith actually has more individual contributors than the other seven gubernatorial campaigns combined). Willis? She has just over $542,000 to spend – but $300,000 of it comes in the form of a loan and roughly $167,000 of it Willis donated to herself.
What about Charleston, S.C. businessman Phil Noble, though? What did he raise? And how much does he have available for the stretch run of the campaign?
Good questions …
If you believe the early polling on this race, the three Democratic contenders are locked in a dead heat for their party’s nomination. This means the candidate best able to boost his or her name identification over the next two months using paid media stands the best chance of winning.
So … will Noble be able to compete with Smith and Willis financially?
We reached out to Noble’s campaign earlier this week after it missed the April 10 deadline for filing. Candidates are given a five day grace period, though, meaning Noble’s campaign had until 11:59 p.m. EDT Monday evening to submit its numbers.
It didn’t happen …
In fact as of this writing, Noble’s filing still hasn’t been posted to the SCSEC site.
What gives? Late Wednesday, Noble’s campaign sent out a pair of news releases blaming the problem on the ethics agency.
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“On April 15, 2018, prior to the expiration of the five day grace period for filing quarterly finance reports, our campaign attempted to upload our report to the South Carolina Ethics Commission’s website,” the statement from Noble’s campaign noted. “As was the case with a number of other candidates, there was a malfunction of the Commission’s site which prevented us from uploading our reports. We immediately contacted the Ethics Commission and we told them of our difficulties. Following their instructions, we emailed a copy of our report to the Commission so that they would have our information while they attempted to fix the problems of the malfunctioning site.”
Hmmm …
Sources close to the ethics commission denied any problems on their end.
Initially, we though Noble was planning some sort of big announcement … seeking to draw attention to his late filing so that he could announce a big number.
That didn’t happen, though …
“Campaign Manager (Brandon Upson) just left Ethics Commission office after two days of meeting with staff,” Noble tweeted late Wednesday. “See earlier statement. The original report was emailed to the SCEC before the deadline.”
Wait … two days of meetings with the ethics commission staff?
Wow …
Anyway, what was the number?
According to Noble’s tweet, his campaign raised roughly $85,000 during the first quarter of 2018 and had roughly $50,000 on hand for the homestretch.
Yikes …
“Much ado about nothing,” Noble added.
Actually it’s not nothing …
Noble wound up with a double dose of bad news. Not only did he post a terrible fundraising number, but his campaign looked utterly incompetent in the process of announcing it. Frankly, we thought Noble was smarter than this.
Obviously Noble’s poor showing doesn’t mean he’s out of contention. He has the ability to invest in his own candidacy, and his campaign told us it is “confident” it will be financially competitive down the stretch.
“Phil has already put in $21,000 of his own money into his race and is able to do more, if needed,” Upson told us. “But we’re very comfortable and confident in our ability to raise the money we need to win this race. We still have over 40 fundraisers scheduled and we’re tied (for) the lead after spending one-fifth of the money that James has spent.”
Several pollsters have also pointed out to us that Noble enjoys another advantage: His name.
“You don’t do much better than ‘Phil Noble’ on the ballot,” one strategist told us. “Undecideds could break disproportionately his way just because they like the way his name sounds.”
Asked to elaborate, the pollster told us “if you see the names James Smith, Marguerite Willis and Phil Noble next to each other on a ballot – and you know absolutely nothing about any of them – you might assume you are choosing between an accountant, a hippie and a king. Who are you going to vote for in that situation? The king, obviously.”
Interesting …
Smith, Willis and Noble face voters on June 12. If no one gets a majority of votes, the two top vote-getters would advance to a runoff election on June 26.
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