Candidates start disclosing war chests for latest quarter

By Teri Okita – bio | email

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The bean counters are busy tonight.

Hawaii's candidates for the U.S. Senate and House seats must have their quarterly federal campaign finance reports in by Saturday. Some of the numbers have already trickled in.

The candidates are building their warchests - some more than others - and balancing the books through the end of September.  Now, we take a peek inside those warchests.

The Senate race is the big enchilada. Republican John Carroll – who only declared about a week before the quarter closed - has about 500 dollars cash-on-hand.

Democrat Ed Case has $272,000 cash in his warchest. He says his campaign definitely has enough resources to last through election day.

Democrat Mazie Hirono announced she has about $722,500 cash-on-hand and says nearly 15,000 people have joined or given to her campaign.

And since she just announced her candidacy this week, Republican Linda Lingle did not have to file a finance report since she wasn't allowed to officially fundraise until she declared. Now, she hopes to raise between eight and 10 million dollars.

In looking at Lingle's goal and the race, political analyst and Hawaii Pacific University professor, John Hart, says, "You have to raise a certain amount of money to play in that ballpark. You have to deal with the idea of whether or not you're going to go with mainland money."

In the Congressional district one race, the campaigns of Republican Charles Djou and Democrat Colleen Hanabusa say they will wait until tomorrow's deadline to release their financial reports.

In the U.S. House district two race between four democrats, Tulsi Gabbard's campaign says it has more than $130,000 cash-on-hand.

Mufi Hannemann announced he has raised more than $306,000 total in the month of September alone but did not disclose his cash-on-hand yet.

OHA attorney Esther Kiaaina say her campaign is still crunching the numbers, and Big Island attorney Bob Marx says he had about $8,600 cash-on-hand.

"Money is seen as a sign, right or wrong, of viability of the candidate," says Hart. "That the more money the candidate has, the more support they have … the more that it's possible to win elections."

It comes down to money and momentum.

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