Per vote costs vary in general election races

While several thousands of dollars were spent at the county level for the elections, and tens of thousands were spent at the district and state levels, millions were spent at the national level. Now that the elections are over, comparisons can be made between candidates on how much they collected in contributions and how much each spent on their campaign rounded to the nearest dollar.

U.S. Representatives

The Center for Responsive Politics website, opensecrets.org, reported Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Lisa Brown had last reported Oct. 17.

McMorris Rodgers raised $5,401,883 for her campaign, and spent $4,885,437.

Brown raised $5,261,081 for her campaign and spent $4,600,386.

Each of those figures put the cost per vote in the 5th Congressional district at $29.68.

Washington’s District 8 race ran a close second at $29.58 per vote. Winner Kim Schrier and Dino Rossi together raised $13,313,897, which was $2,650,933 more than Brown and McMorris Rodgers, but they spent $9,238,743 compared to $9,485,823 in District 5.

Schrier won with 163,686 of the 312,340 votes in their district.

The next closest was District 3 at $15.25 per vote.

County Positions

County Commissioner Michael Largent received $8,611 in contributions and ended up spending $11,907 with personal loans listed to pay the difference.

Democratic challenger John-Mark Mahnkey received $3,548 in contributions and spent $1,654 on his campaign.

That put the per-vote cost of the county race at 83 cents.

Neither of the county auditor candidates or treasurer candidates exceeded the $5,000 mark required for reporting campaigns. Christina Nelson, who won the race for treasurer, did report receiving $1,810 in contributions.

District Judges

John Hart, the candidate with the 64.6 percent lead, was able to get $31,889 in contributions and spent $32,024 for the campaign. Robert Rembert collected $25,292 in contributions and spent $25,816.

Both Hart and Rembert listed $11,000 of in-kind contributions to their campaigns, according to their reports Oct. 30 with the state Public Disclosure Commission.

The county cost for the judge’s position figured at $3.88 per vote. received.

State Legislative Representatives

Mary Dye received $64,842 in contributions and listed $49,056 in expenditures. Dye won the District Nine race with 64.3 percent of the vote overall.

Challenger Jenn Goulet listed $60,411 in contributions and $53,449 in expenditures.

Together they spent $1.96 per vote.

Joe Schmick had the largest budget of the District Nine representatives. Schmick received $123,669 in contributions and as of Nov. 6 he had $87,802 in expenditures with a $45,000 contribution to the House Republican Organizational Committee listed.

Schmick’s opponent, Matthew Sutherland, had $82,293 in contributions as of Nov. 5. He spent $54,873.

Together they spent $2.76 per vote.