It's common for a candidate to take heat when their fund-raising comes up short but this year there's a switch. The candidate who has raised the most is being questioned over the huge amount she has already spent.  

Dem Guv hopeful Deb Haaland's historic $11.1 million take with seven months still to go in the cycle is a stunner, but so is the reveal that she has already gone through over half that cash. 

In her finance report released last week Haaland reports expenditures as of April 6 of $6.713 million and cash on hand of $4.366 million.

In the October-April period she raised $4.075 million and spent $2.610 million. So where did the money go? There was no high dollar TV campaign or radio ads during that time. Her foes argue the big spend shows she is fiscally reckless and will be the same as Governor. The political pros are more cautious. They say the cost of raising money has ballooned and that for each dollar raised nearly half of that dollar may be spent to raise it which is the case for Haaland. 

We had consultants and AI help us parse the tremendous amount of data in Haaland's 13,000 page report  for that October-April period and found that 47 percent of the cash she collected went to fund-raising. 

With the standard warning that AI can make mistakes but is usually strong with data, here are the details:

The vast majority of the campaign's overhead is geared toward maintaining its massive small-dollar donor engine. 

--Digital fund-raising and list acquisition cost of $1,145,000. This is the largest single category of spending. Haaland’s campaign relies on a high volume of low-dollar donations (she says the over all donor average is $35). To keep this engine running, they spent heavily on digital ads. About $820,000 went to digital firms for acquisition ads designed to find new donors. 

Email & SMS Strategy: Approximately $325,000 was paid to consulting firms to manage the high-frequency email and text message program that drives the bulk of the $4 million. 

--Because the campaign is grassroots-funded, it pays a significant amount in transaction taxes. The report shows roughly $161,000 paid to ActBlue. This is the standard 3.95% fee on credit card contributions. Essentially, for every $1 million raised online, $39,500 never actually reaches the campaign's bank account.  

--Direct Mail & Tele-Fundraising $412,000. Despite the digital focus, the campaign invested heavily in traditional outreach to reach older voters and rural donors.

--Printing & Postage: $285,000 for high-gloss mailers focused on fundraising appeals. Call Centers: $127,000 for donor maintenance and tele-town hall fundraising events. Fundraising Staff & Travel:$218,000.

Of the $4,075,653 Haaland raised in October to April, AI estimates the direct cost to raise it was $1,939,280. That's approximately 47 cents to raise every $1.00 in the six month period. 

THE BOTTOM LINES 

Haaland has raised massive amounts of campaign funds and spent prodigious amounts to ensure a donor base not only for the primary but one that is ready to give for the general election--should she defeat Sam Bregman June 2.

While a 47% "cost to raise" is high, it is considered healthy for a grassroots operation. By spending this money now, the campaign has built a massive database estimated by AI at over 39,000 donors. They can return to them for free in the final months without having to pay for new ads.

This is the Home of New Mexico Politics.