Timothy O’Brien, candidate for Denver auditor. (Candidate handout)
In the race for Denver auditor in Tuesday’s election, establishment-backed Councilman Chris Nevitt widened his fundraising advantage over Timothy O’Brien in this week’s pre-election finance reports. But O’Brien chipped in more of his money as a partial offset, to the tune of $30,000.
O’Brien loaned $25,000 on April 6 and another $5,000 on April 13. That’s on top of a January loan of $10,000. The extra money helped him mount a more aggressive mailer strategy in the last month.
“Thatap what it takes to get the message out,” he said Friday, noting that he had an idea of what a competitive campaign would take when he set out and was determined to run one even if it meant dipping into his own pockets.
In donations from outside contributors, O’Brien brought in just $3,900 between April 1 and April 29. That takes his total for the cycle to $40,699.
Denver City Councilman Chris Nevitt.
Nevitt raised $38,550 in April alone, taking his total fundraising up to $293,916.31 — the largest haul this cycle outside Mayor Michael Hancock’s re-election campaign — and leaving Nevitt with $71,831 leftover as of Thursday. He spent even more than O’Brien on a steady stream of mailers last month.
(The mayor, the , added $94,936 in April, bringing his campaign haul to $1.3 million. Owing largely to , he spent $466,057 in April and had $324,819 remaining. .)
Because of issues that O’Brien attributed to Denver’s cumbersome online finance-reporting system, the recent loans are reported in a head-scratching way on his Thursday report.
His campaign finance report lists both under in-kind contributions. Under “item contributed,” the $25,000 from O’Brien is listed as “cash,” which would seem to run counter to the idea of a in-kind donation. He said both that and the $5,000 he gave his campaign later were loans.
The report provides a section at the end for loans, but O’Brien’s treasurer didn’t use that section this time. O’Brien, when asked about the report oddities, said his campaign received advice from election officials to use the in-kind section. Regardless, his report shows cash-on-hand at the end of the period as negative $20,828 — probably a message that the proud certified public accountant wouldn’t want to project, though factoring in the loans makes the balance positive.
Other candidates this year have complained about difficulty using the Denver Elections Division’s finance reporting system, which earlier had glitches preventing some candidates from filing on time.
O’Brien is seen as the underdog to Nevitt, who has backing from outgoing Auditor Dennis Gallagher and from Hancock. He portrays himself as more qualified since he served as the appointed state auditor. Nevitt lacks auditing experience, arguing the office is about oversight of a professional auditing staff. He has run a vigorous campaign and drawn wide financial support.
Earlier this week, the candidates .
I haven’t had a chance to look at all of the City Council candidates’ new finance reports, but you can as of a month ago.
