Checking In On The Less Popular Ward Races

With everyone, including myself, looking at the city-wide race between Jim Shrewbury and Lewis Reed, the hotly contested 3-way race in the 6th ward and the potentially interesting 20th ward race, I thought I would turn some attention to the other challenged seats. With their 40-Day before election reports all in we can see how they are doing at least from a financial perspective:

4th Ward:

Incumbent O.L. Shelton doens’t even have a campaign committee set up at all. Challenger Sam Moore has a committee but only raised $200. These two have no choice but to be grass roots.

12th Ward:

Incumbent Fred Heitert, a Republican, is facing fellow Republican Matthew Browning in the March 6th Primary. Heitert, first elected in 1979 (yes, in the age of Disco), has been filing “limited activity” reports for years. Finally we know how much he has coming into the race, a tad over $3,600. In November he lent his campaign $15,000. Browning is getting a slow start having raised only $50 bucks but he too is willing to spend his own money having lent his campaign $5,000. The winner of the Republican primary will face Democrat James Pree on April 3, 2007. Pree has just established his committee so it is hard to judge how he will do against either Heitert or Browning. Just the fact we will have both a primary and general contest makes this an interesting race to watch.

18th Ward:

Incumbent Terry Kennedy raised $4,300 but he only started with $100. He’s spent $3,657 so far. Challenger Bill Haas who, until recently, was also running for the school board, filed a “limited activity report” which means expense & contributions were limited to $500 or less.

22nd Ward:

Incumbent Jeffrey Boyd, who voted with Jim Shrewsbury against the BJC Lease, didn’t raise much cash but he started off with a tidy sum, after expenses he has over $35K on hand. Challenger Jay Ozier raised $700 and has $111 left. Can you say “uphill battle?”

24th Ward:

Incumbent Bill Waterhouse, who won a 2005 special election after challenger Tom Bauer was recalled from the job, has raised over $11K for this election cycle and has just over $12K on-hand. Meanwhile, Tom Bauer has raised only $200 and has lent his campaign $5,150.

26th Ward:

Incumbent Frank Williamson raised only $375 this period but since he started with over $15K he probably didn’t feel the need to push for much more. Challenger H. Lee Willis has raised around $1,300 plus a loan of another $300.

What I find most interesting is the differences from ward to ward. Some incumbents have massive amounts of money, which is part of the reason you don’t see anyone running against them. Other wards seem to be on less than shoe-string budgets.