Jones, Tuberville ramp up election spending in final stretch
Per recent campaign finance reports, both gubernatorial campaigns are rapidly spending down their war chests in the days before the election.
Recent weekly and daily campaign finance reports filed by Republican nominee Tommy Tuberville’s and Democratic nominee Doug Jones’ respective gubernatorial campaigns show that both are spending big in the final days before the November 3 election.
The weekly reports covering October 17 through October 23 show that the Tuberville campaign spent almost $2.9 million and the Jones campaign spent more than $700,000. Despite its significantly higher spending, the Tuberville campaign still has far more cash on hand heading into next week’s election, which could allow it to maintain a spending advantage in the interim.
Both campaigns’ largest expenditures were for services from large political consulting firms. During that week, the Tuberville campaign paid more than $2.6 million for advertising services from Go Big Media LLC, and the Jones campaign paid Democratic-aligned media agency Lever Communications $615,000.
Other reported expenditures included catering expenses, shipping costs and miscellaneous reimbursements.
On October 26 and 27, according to daily reports, the Tuberville campaign spent just $3,675. Over the same period, the campaign received $185,143 in cash and in-kind contributions, with the largest single donation being a $75,000 contribution from the Business Council of Alabama's ProgressPAC.
Over the same two days, the Jones campaign spent $466,238 and received almost $90,000 in contributions. The largest single expenditure, by far, was another payment of $450,000 to Lever Communications.
Despite Jones occasionally outraising Tuberville, the Tuberville campaign has long enjoyed a significant fundraising advantage. In total, Tuberville’s gubernatorial campaign has raised more than $16 million, and Jones’ campaign has raised more than $6 million.
This fundraising advantage means that even though the Tuberville campaign has been outspending the Jones campaign recently, it still has more than four times as much cash on hand.
The Tuberville campaign’s ending balance, according to its October 27 daily report, is more than $2 million. In comparison, the Jones campaign’s ending balance in its report for the same day is less than $500,000.
