The most devastating economic downturn since the Great Depression has done little to slow Nevada’s political fundraising machine as Democratic incumbents Susie Lee and Steven Horsford each reported record-setting numbers for the second quarter of 2020, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday. 

The pair, who raised roughly $700,000 and $540,000, respectively, led the money race among the eight remaining major party candidates for the looming general election in November. But as each ran primaries without serious or well-funded opponents, they have amassed massive campaign war chests roughly 10 times the size of their Republican challengers — a rare disparity in traditionally competitive House elections.  

Because the second quarter straddles a primary election, these reports are one of few broken in chunks by special pre-election reporting deadlines. 

In Nevada, roughly half of the quarter was captured in early filing reports due back in May, ahead of the state’s June 9 primary. Reports filed Wednesday reflect the latter half of the quarter, including the weeks following those primary results. 

Below is a breakdown of that fundraising by district, ordered by fundraising totals from greatest to least. This story will be updated as filings submitted late-Wednesday become public on Thursday.

DISTRICT 3

Susie Lee - Democrat (incumbent)

• Q2 receipts: $700,119
• Q2 spending: $174,105
• Cash on hand: $2.4 million

Looking to keep her seat in the most competitive congressional district in Nevada, Lee managed her single-best fundraising quarter through the spring, including bringing in nearly $510,000 over the six-week period between the pre-primary deadline in May and the quarterly deadline in June — more than double the $190,000 she raised in the prior six weeks. 

Of that half-million raised in May and June, roughly half, $250,000, came from individuals, more than $140,000 came from PACs, and the final $117,000 came from committee transfers. Those transfers include a single $33,000 contribution from the Hold the House Victory Fund, a group linked to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. 

Dan Rodimer - Republican

• Q2 receipts: $200,133
• Q2 spending: $269,558
• Cash on hand: $253,215

Rodimer — frequently the fundraising leader in the three-way Republican race in the primary — continued a streak of six-figure fundraising hauls, adding roughly $200,000 to his war chest in the second quarter, of which $106,000 came in the final six weeks. 

Still, even as his campaign touted the number as having “shattered internal fundraising goals,” a last-minute spending push ahead of the primary meant Rodimer outspent his donations by nearly $70,000. In May, the campaign reported spending more than $196,000, on top of another $73,000 in the final weeks of the quarter.

Those final weeks also saw some of the first direct injections of party money into the Rodimer campaign, including $7,000 from Republican Whip Steve Scalise and his Eye of the Tiger PAC, $5,000 from the National Republican Campaign Committee and $5,600 from Full House PAC, a group affiliated with former District 3 Rep. Joe Heck. 

Other candidates

A handful of Republicans who ran and lost in the primary race for District 3 also filed reports Wednesday. Among them was former Treasurer Dan Schwartz, who reported giving his campaign an additional $11,000 in the final days of the campaign, adding to $579,000 he had loaned to his warchest in the months prior. 

The campaign for conservative blogger and actress Mindy Robinson, who entered the race just days before the March filing deadline, also reported raising nearly $5,200 in the last weeks of the campaign, boosting her total fundraising to just over $36,000. 

DISTRICT 4

Steven Horsford - Democrat (incumbent)

• Q2 receipts: $539,496
• Q2 spending: $153,595
• Cash on hand: $1.5 million

Horsford, much like Lee, saw his fundraising roughly double in the weeks following the May filing deadline, bringing in more than $366,000 through the back-end of the quarter. Of that money, most of it — $181,000 — came from PAC contributions, while another $149,000 came from individuals and roughly $35,000 came from a transfer from the DCCC’s Hold the House Victory Fund. 

Past filings show Horsford traditionally receives a greater proportion of his fundraising, on average, from outside groups rather than individuals. That remained true in quarter two, where Horsford saw the biggest PAC contributions come from MGM Resorts International, the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, the National Education Association and the party-linked House Majority PAC, each of which gave $5,000.

Jim Marchant - Republican

• Q2 receipts: $187,111
• Q2 spending: $201,752
• Cash on hand: $141,935

Marchant, the former Republican assemblyman hoping to unseat Horsford in November, reported a best-ever fundraising haul of more than $187,000 in the second quarter, of which more than two-thirds — about $136,000 — came from individual donors. An additional $11,000 in contributions came from PACs and none came in the form of candidate loans (Marchant had loaned his campaign more than $110,000 in the run-up to the June primary).

Marchant’s campaign also filed a form Wednesday acknowledging to the FEC that it had made a handful of reporting errors across three reports from 2019 and 2020, including failing to report “financial activity from a third party direct mail vendor” because the information was not provided to the campaign “in a timely manner.” 

The form goes on to note that the campaign has since hired a new consultant for the express purpose of FEC compliance, noting that “until now, the campaign did not have the resources for a professional compliance firm or compliance database.”

Other candidates

Seven candidates ultimately lost to Marchant in the bid for District 4’s Republican nomination. Among those who received more than 5 percent of the vote in the primary: Insurance agent Sam Peters, who finished the primary race nearest Marchant, reported raising more than $23,300; one-time Miss Nevada and business owner Lisa Song Sutton reported raising $34,500 and spending nearly $115,000 in the last days of the primary; former congressional staffer Charles Navarro reported raising just $1,600; and the campaign for business owner Rebecca Wood had not posted an updated quarterly filing as of Wednesday night. 

DISTRICT 2

Mark Amodei - Republican (incumbent)

• Q2 receipts: $60,900
• Q2 spending: $88,068
• Cash on hand: $266,306 

Though the incumbent Amodei outspent his fundraising in the second quarter, his remaining $266,000 in cash on hand places his warchest well beyond that of his Democratic challenger in the lead-up to a reelection bid in ruby-red District 2. 

Much of that spending came before the pre-primary deadline, however, and Amodei reported just over $10,300 over the last six weeks of the reporting period of which half — $5,000 — went to accounting services. 

Patricia Ackerman - Democrat

As of Wednesday night, Ackerman’s updated filing was unavailable via the FEC website. This story will be updated as those records become available. As of the May 20 deadline, however, Ackerman had raised $13,494 and was left with $8,135 cash on hand. 

DISTRICT 1

Dina Titus - Democrat (incumbent)

• Q2 receipts: $55,262
• Q2 spending: $58,882
• Cash on hand: $326,435

Longtime incumbent Dina Titus — who represents the most Democratic congressional district in the state — raised substantially less than her Democratic colleagues in competitive races. Still, like Lee and Horsford, Titus saw much of her money come in the last weeks of the quarter, where she raised more than $41,000. 

A majority of that money, $34,000, came from PACs, while just over $7,600 came from individuals. Among Titus’ biggest donors this quarter were PACs affiliated MGM Resorts International and the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, which each gave $5,000. 

Titus’ Republican opponent, Joyce Bentley, did not file a pre-primary report, and as of Wednesday night, had not filed a quarterly report, either.