With just over a month to go until Election Day, only one statewide candidate appears to be giving his incumbent opponent a run for his money when it comes to recent campaign fundraising.
According to candidates’ Oct. 1 campaign finance filings with the Secretary of State’s Office, Republican lieutenant gubernatorial candidate John Rodgers raised $59,824 in the past month. That equals nearly half of the total cash the first-time statewide candidate has raised thus far this election cycle: $123,434.
His Progressive-Democratic opponent, incumbent Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, by comparison, went into this election cycle with a financial leg up, having rolled over $11,158 from his previous campaigns. This cycle to date, he still has Rodgers beat when it comes to cumulative fundraising, raising $192,160 in total.
But since the two candidates last filed campaign finance reports, Rodgers’ donations in the past month were more than double those of Zuckerman’s at $26,967 in September.
That’s thanks in large part to a number of large-dollar donations. Despite his direct appeals to working class Vermonters as “the son of a dairy farmer” on the campaign trail and the debate stage, the vast majority — about 96% — of Rodgers’ dollars raised this month came thanks to donations of $100 or more.
One family, in particular, donated more cash to Rodgers this month than all of his small-dollar donors combined. Four members of the Pizzagalli family — of the South Burlington real estate development group Pizzagalli Properties, LLC — donated $3,000 in total to Rodgers’ campaign in the last month. Cumulatively this election cycle, four members of the family — James, Angelo, Remo and Donna Pizzagalli — together have donated $5,000 to the Democrat-turned-Republican.
The Pizzagallis are not the only real estate developers to back Rodgers’ campaign to unseat Zuckerman. Bissonette Properties of Burlington and former-Republican political candidate Scott Milne’s own Masaii Properties each forked over $1,000 to the Northeast Kingdom Republican. Rodgers also this month accepted donations from the Vermont Automobile Dealers Association ($500), Vermont Fuel Dealers Association ($750) and Casella Associates ($4,000), a real estate holding company owned by principals in Casella Waste Systems, the Rutland-based waste management behemoth.
In comparison, roughly 78% of Zuckerman’s contributions this month came from donations which exceeded $100. While Zuckerman’s own financial disclosures lacked the corporate and special interest donors comparable to those of his opponent, he did receive a number of high-dollar donations which crept up to, or reached, statewide candidates’ campaign finance contribution limit of $4,480 from a single source.
Carol Boerner, an ophthalmologist from Reading, has donated $4,405 to Zuckerman so far this campaign cycle. Marion Mohri of Wheelock, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and public health officer, has sent $4,480 to Zuckerman this cycle. And Alison Williams of Miami Beach, Florida has also maxed out her donation limit to Zuckerman this cycle, according to the Oct. 1 report. And Charles Zuckerman of San Francisco wrote a $2,000 check to his brother this month, bringing his contribution total to $2,250 so far this cycle. The Vermont Progressive Party, too, sent $2,500 to their statewide standard bearer this month.
Rodgers, too, is seeing institutional backup. The Orleans County Republican Committee sent $1,000 his way this month, as did the Shelburne GOP. And the campaign of Gov. Phil Scott offered up the governor’s endorsee a $500 in-kind donation for polling.
Rodgers was far from the only candidate to receive such monetary assistance from the incumbent governor’s war chest. Four Republican state Senate candidates whom the governor has endorsed — Scott Beck of Caledonia County, Pat Brennan of the Grand Isle district, Sam Douglass of Orleans County and Chris Mattos of the Chittenden North district — each were bestowed $700 in in-kind donations for polling, according to the Scott camp’s own Oct. 1 finance report.
In total, the Scott campaign paid $6,000 last month to the Illinois-based Don’t AFK, LLC polling firm. The governor also in September spent $117,500 on two mass media expenditures as part of his campaign to break the Legislature’s Democratic supermajority. The campaign paid Williston-based Hen House Media $87,500 to film two television commercials, in which the governor urges voters to elect legislators “who will actually work with me.” The campaign also sent $30,000 to the Washington, D.C.-based Battleground Strategies for online advertising.
And despite rolling over more than $332,000 from his prior campaigns, the governor is still collecting checks from special interest groups and PACs. Stand for America PAC, founded by South Carolina’s former-governor Nikki Haley, whom Scott endorsed in her unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination this year, maxed out its limit of $4,480 to the governor this month. So, too, did the Georgians First Leadership PAC, a PAC founded by Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
In total this campaign cycle, the governor has raised $252,070 as of Oct. 1. That’s more than $100,000 more than he cumulatively raised by the same time last election cycle, with the campaign reportedly raising $151,414 by Oct. 1, 2022, according to its campaign finance report from the time.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Only one statewide incumbent was out-raised by his challenger last month.