Apopkans now know how much the candidates for City Council Seats 3 and 4 raised in December. See Arrowsmith, Bankson lead December fundraising for the details.
But how much will each candidate ultimately raise before Election Day on March 15, 2016?
The Apopka Voice has analyzed the Campaign Finance Reports filed during the 2012 and 2014 City Council races. The findings are interesting.
Let's look at the 2012 race first.
In 2012 there were four candidates vying for Seat 3. This table shows how much each candidate collected and the number of votes each candidate received:
Since no candidate received more than 50% there was a runoff between the two candidates with the highest vote counts; Kilsheimer and Laurendeau.
Kilsheimer won the runoff with 955 votes compared to 878 for Laurendeau.
In 2014 Seat 3 was once again up for grabs as Kilsheimer had to resign to run for mayor. Seat 2 was also on the ballot. This table shows the contributions and votes for each candidate:
Velazquez defeated McQueen in the General Election. Ruth defeated Laurendeau in the Runoff Election, 3,004 to 2,846.
What does it all mean? Are we any closer to answering the original question?
Consider this:
In 2012 Kilsheimer spent nearly $18 for every vote received in the runnoff. Laurendeau spent closer to $10 per vote received in the runoff.
In 2014 McQueen and Velazquez each spent about $5 for each vote received in the General Election while Laurendeau spent $4 and Ruth spent near $7 for each vote received in the Runoff Election. Ruth spent 83% more than Laurendeau but received only 9% more votes in the runoff.
One last observation about the 2014 Elections: As this chart shows, the two candidates that raised the most money both won their elections.
The same happened in 2012. The candidate with the most money won.
In Part 2 of the series we will look at how the candidates spent the contributions they received.
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