Iowa candidates for governor raised $11 million in 2017, foreshadowing expensive 2018 race

Money poured into the race for Iowa governor last year, with donors spending more than $11 million on the top seven candidates in vying for Democratic and Republican nominations.

Leading the way were incumbent GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds, who reported a $3.7 million haul, and Democratic challenger Fred Hubbell, who topped $3 million in 2017. Campaigns were required to disclose their raising and spending for the entire year by Friday afternoon.

Those figures from Reynolds and Hubbell alone would set a record for fundraising in the year preceding an Iowa gubernatorial election, eclipsing the roughly $5 million raised by a slate of candidates in 2005, the previous record.

But wait, there’s more: two other candidates — Democrats Cathy Glasson and Nate Boulton — each raised more than $1 million, and three more beyond them reported big numbers as well: Republican Ron Corbett at more than $844,000; Democrat Andy McGuire at nearly $678,000 and Democrat John Norris just over $300,000.

The numbers set the stage for lively, expensive intraparty races ahead of the June 5 primary election, and portend an even bigger fight to come in the November general election.

Hubbell, Boulton and Glasson have already begun running TV ads to back their candidacies, with Hubbell going up last October. Reynolds’ take builds on more than $1 million she already had in the bank, giving her more than $4.1 cash on hand after 2017 expenses.

The reports offer clear insights into each of the campaigns’ bases of support.

Reynolds, for example, brought in almost $1.3 million from the Republican Governors Association, a national group committed to protecting GOP incumbents.

Hubbell, a retired business executive from one of Des Moines’ most prominent families, meanwhile, tapped a wide, bipartisan network of wealthy donors from Iowa and beyond. Des Moines businessmen William Knapp and James Cownie gave to Hubbell after previously donating to Republican Gov. Terry Branstad’s re-election campaigns. Cownie in 2017 gave $25,000 to Hubbell — and another $25,000 to Reynolds.

Glasson and Boulton’s reports, meanwhile, underscore their support from organized labor.

Of the $1.3 million raised by Glasson, $1.1 million came from 28 donations by various out-of-state entities associated with the Service Employees International Union, for which Glasson is a local president. Separate filings show another $500,000 given to Glasson by a national arm of SEIU in early 2018, just after the reporting period closed.

Boulton also draws heavily from union contributions: his top 13 donors, comprising more than half of his donations, are from various labor groups including the Iowa unit of the Great Plains Laborers union and AFSCME Council 61, which represents thousands of Iowa state employees.

Beyond the leaders, a handful of declared gubernatorial candidates reported raising less than $10,000 for their campaigns, including Democrats Ross Wilburn and Jon Neiderbach, Republican Steven Ray, Libertarian Jake Porter and independent Gary Siegwarth.

Here's a rundown of the highest-drawing candidates:

Republicans

Gov. Kim Reynolds

Amount raised: $3,744,046.95

Cash on hand: $4,140,180.56

Burn rate*: 21 percent

Top 5 donors:

Republican Governors Association Right Direction PAC: $1,291,093.12

Debra Hansen: $175,000

Sheri Avis Horner Revocable Trust: $112,500

David & Penny North: $105,027

Michael Hansen: $100,000

Percent of donations from Iowa: 60 percent

PAC vs. Individual donations: 60 percent individual, 40 percent PAC

Of note: Reynolds’ total narrowly exceeds GOP Gov. Terry Branstad’s fundraising haul of $3.46 million from 2013, the year before his successful re-election in 2014.

Ron Corbett

Amount raised: $844,637.84

Cash on hand: $578,897.79

Burn rate: 32 percent

Top 5 donors:

Dyan Smith: $100,000

John Bloomhall: $50,000

Christopher DeWolf: $50,000

Philpott Meeks, LLP: $50,000

Corbett for Mayor PAC: $41,951.83

Percent of donations from Iowa: 78 percent

PAC vs. Individual donations: 95 percent individual, 5 percent PAC

Of note: 61 percent of Corbett’s donations came from donors in the city of Cedar Rapids, his hometown where he served two terms as mayor.

Democrats

Fred Hubbell

Amount raised: $3,053,257.53

Cash on hand: $1,231,358.21

Burn rate: 60 percent

Top 5 donors:

William Knapp: $160,000

Art Coppola: $151,247

Fred Hubbell: $118,013.57

Harry Bookey: $112,500

Thomas McInerney: $101,800

Percent of donations from Iowa: 76 percent

PAC vs. Individual donations: 99 percent individual, less than 1 percent PAC

Of note: Although Hubbell himself contributed just more than $118,000 to his candidacy, a total of 16 people with the last name Hubbell gave a total of more than $318,000 to his campaign.

Cathy Glasson

Amount raised: $1,323,055.97

Cash on hand: $729,401.58

Burn rate: 54 percent

Additional information unavailable because of incomplete data as of press time.

Of note: Glasson received a total of $106,250 from Sable Knapp — the granddaughter of William Knapp, who donated $160,000 to Hubbell's campaign.

Nate Boulton

Amount raised: $1,078,207.97

Cash on hand: $481,375.59

Burn rate: 57 percent

Top 5 donors:

Great Plains Laborers' District Council Iowa PAC: $165,000

AFSCME Iowa Council 61 P.E.O.P.L.E. PAC: $100,000

Heavy Highway PAC: $60,000

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers PAC: $41,549

United Steelworkers of America District 11 PAC: $40,000

Percent of donations from Iowa: 83 percent

PAC vs. Individual donations: 42 percent individual; 58 percent PAC

Of note: Although Boulton raked in the labor PAC dollars, his donations from individuals were modest. The most generous individual contributor to his campaign gave just $8,500, the lowest of any major campaign’s top donors.

Andy McGuire

Amount raised: $677,584.98

Cash on hand: $255,106.24

Burn rate: 65 percent

Top 5 donors:

Andrea McGuire: $255,297.15

Sheila Riggs: $20,500

Steven Ludford: $16,000

Anne McGuire: $15,375

Michael H. McGuire: $10,500



Percent of donations from Iowa: 67 percent

PAC vs. Individual donations: 99 percent individual, less than 1 percent PAC

Of note: McGuire is the top donor to her campaign, having self-funded more than a third of the total raised.

John Norris

Amount raised: $302,300.75

Cash on hand: $144,081.93

Burn rate: 56 percent

Top 5 donors:

John Norris: $23,331.76

Daniel Hunter: $12,100.00

Steven Johnson: $10,000.00

James Norris: $7,500.00

Greg Peterson: $5,000.00

Percent of donations from Iowa: 50 percent

PAC vs. Individual donations: 99 percent individual, 1 percent PAC

Of note: Norris’ lone PAC donation comes from the campaign account of John Kerry, the former U.S. senator and secretary of state who ran for president and won the Iowa caucuses in 2004.

*Burn rate is a measure of a campaign’s use of resources. A higher burn rate might suggest the campaign’s expenditures are unsustainable, while a lower rate might indicate it is being thrifty or too conservative. The figures in this story were calculated by adding a campaign’s total in-kind contributions to both its cash contributions and total expenditures for 2017 and then dividing that expenditure figure by the contribution figure.