Tag Archive for 'Brian Davis'
Check out The UpTake for live coverage and streaming of the first debate between Tim Walz and Brian Davis debate in CD1. The action starts at noon today.
The First Congressional District in Minnesota should, by all reasonable measures, be a tough spot for a House Dem to keep his seat. The district is right on the edge between Dem and Repub, it was represented for generations by a Republican Rep, and Walz is a first-termer — arguably the most difficult reelection of a Rep’s career. So, don’t let anyone tell you that the race in the 1st is an easy battle, it just looks that way because Tim Walz has been kicking some major butt.
Need more evidence of the butt-kicking that is happening down South? Brian Davis, Tim Walz’s Republican opponent, just released his first TV ad of the general election and it’s an attack ad. An attack ad! No bio, no introduction, no issues ad, just straight to the attack. Davis is getting his first real chance to let the district, on a broad base, know who he is and what he stands for but instead he chose to attack Walz. This is the definition of desperation.
What’s more, the ad is full of blatant lies. Davis knows the reason that Walz is kicking his butt is because Walz fits the district so danged well and has done an admirable job of representing the district’s moderate nature in his votes in Congress. So, because of this, Davis is trying to paint Walz as a liberal. Davis claims that Walz is among the most liberal in Congress, but by the National Journel’s statistics Walz has a more conservative voting record than 35.7% of Congress! Admittedly, these sort of ratings are flawed for a variety of reasons, but his record confirms. He voted against his party on the bailout twice (which I disagree with, but that’s a different story) because he felt it didn’t mesh with the 1st’s needs. He’s endorsed by the NRA and the VFW. He voted to allow the moratorium on off-shore drilling to end. Oh and he’s a friend of Minnesota’s farmers: he’s receiving the “Friend’s of Farm Bureau” award, he’s endorsed by the National Farmer’s Union, he was a champion of raising the minimum wage, and he fought hard for the new Farm Bill. Wow, what a liberal nut!
The fact of the matter is that Tim Walz is a moderate who fits his district, which is probably why he’s so popular there. To try to undermine this strength, Brian Davis has released a desperate ad full of lies. But, the reality is that lies and all, this ad is airing in the 1st and people will see it. So how about we help Tim fight back; I think it serves all Minnesotans well to have this guy around for a while.
Bluestem has the scoop.
Today, Congressman Tim Walz’s campaign released estimates of its fundraising numbers for the second quarter of 2008. Walz had his strongest quarter yet, with more than 2,500 individual contributors and raising more than $430,000, bringing cash on hand for the cycle to $1.2 million.
GOP endorsed candidate Brian Davis raised $290,000 in the second quarter and loaned himself an additional $100,000. That means that even if you include the six figure loan, Walz outraised Davis by at least $40k. His cash on hand lead is even more impressive - $1.2 million for Walz vs. $376k for Davis. Thats a 3-1 lead.
Davis’ primary challenger, Dick Day, has yet to report his fundraising totals, but I’d guess he’ll fall well below Davis’ totals. In fact, despite promising to do so just last week, Day has yet to file for office and some are speculating that he won’t (though to be fair, Davis and Walz have yet to file as well).
Bottom line: Davis’ fundraising is impressive, but its just not enough to make this a competitive race in such a DFL year.
The FEC Report is available here.
Davis raised 268k from individuals, got another 20k from party units and PACs and put in 2k himself. Not bad.
The big news, if I am reading this report correctly, is that Davis loaned his campaign an adittional 100k. Thats on top of the loans he made earlier in the cycle.
Davis has $376,000 cash on hand. That’s a good sum for a challenger. Too bad he’ll have to spend a lot of it fighting Dick Day in the primary. Oh, and don’t forget that Tim Walz had a million dollars in the bank as of April.
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