Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) (Patrick Semansky-Pool/Getty Images)

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and primary challenger Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) are amassing huge sums of campaign cash in what has become a divisive special Senate election.

Loeffler raised $1.2 million from donors for her reelection bid during the first three months of 2020. As a wealthy businesswoman, Loeffler loaned her campaign $5 million, bringing her total self-funding to $10 million this cycle. Her ability to self-fund her bid was one of her initial strengths early on in the race.

Vying for Loeffler’s seat, prominent Trump supporter Collins raised $842,000 this quarter, leaving $2.2 million in cash on hand. Collins kickstarted his Senate run with a cash transfer of over $1.6 million from his House account. The ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, Collins was a notable defender of President Donald Trump during the president’s impeachment trial. He used that airtime to bring in new donors. While 15 percent of Collins’ campaign cash comes from small donors, only one percent of Loeffler’s money comes from those giving $200 or less.

The stakes are high for Senate Republicans in the competitive Georgia special election. A runoff election will be held in January if no candidate gets a majority of votes in the jungle primary.

After news broke last month that Loeffler sold up to seven figures in publicly traded stocks after attending a classified coronavirus briefing on Jan. 24, Loeffler’s stance in the race was jeopardized. The accusations of insider trading are hurting her chances in the jungle primary, according to Christopher Grant, a political science professor at Mercer University.

“A lot of people have never heard of her before the governor announced her appointment,” Grant said. “So for many Georgians, their first real introduction to her as a headline senator has been the stock scandal. This is not a good way to get introduced to voters, especially during a time when people are frustrated and in hardship.”

This has attracted the attention and spending of conservative outside groups such as Club for Growth Action and Senate Leadership Fund. Already, SLF already spent $774,083 influencing potential voters to oppose Collins. The groups are targeting voters in support of Loeffler.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Loeffler to the seat in December after Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) resigned because of health issues. The winner of the special election will serve the last two years of Isakson’s term, which ends in 2023.

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Loeffler has the support of Kemp and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, while Collins is backed by the pro-Trump super PAC Great America PAC. Even though Trump initially threw his support behind Collins for the seat appointment in December, he hasn’t formally endorsed a candidate in the primary.

Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Atlanta church, raised the most money out of the eight Democrats vying for Loeffler’s seat, raking in $1.5 million this quarter. Warnock is backed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and endorsed by Stacey Abrams, 2018 gubernatorial candidate who narrowly lost to Kemp by a few thousand votes. The DSCC spent $75,000 independently supporting Warnock. Grant suspects that Warnock has a good chance of making it to the runoff in January thanks to Collins’ primary challenge.

“That changed a lot of dynamics,” Grant said. “You’ve got a divided Republican Party fighting between Loeffler and Collins. The dynamics of that race then introduce the opening for the Democrats to be able to win.”

Perdue in stronger position to hold seat

Freshman Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) raised nearly $1.7 million this quarter to defend his position in the state’s other Senate seat. Perdue is backed by joint fundraising committees such as Perdue Victory that collectively funneled more than $2.8 million of donations to the senator this cycle, new filings show.

Democrats such as former Columbus mayor Teresa Tomlinson and former 2018 Atlanta-area House seat challenger Jon Ossoff are among the four Democrats challenging Perdue. Tomlinson raked in more than $617,000 in contributions through March, bringing her total this cycle to over $2 million, according to her April quarterly FEC filings. Ossoff raised over $1 million in the first quarter. He carries an influential endorsement from civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.).

Loeffler was the second senator at the coronavirus briefing to have suspicious stock trade activity exposed. OpenSecrets first reported that Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sold up to $1.7 million in stocks before the market crashed.

The Georgia primary was postponed twice because of coronavirus concerns. It was originally on March 24 but is now slated for June 9. Georgia was the second state in the country to delay its primary.



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