Senate hopeful raises $648,622

U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian will report that he has raised $648,622 in contributions for his campaign to challenge Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., campaign sources say.

The total, according to Tarkanian's campaign team, puts him on pace to raise as much as $2 million for the primary, but he remains behind John Chachas, who to date has raised $1.9 million, including $1.3 million of his own money and $594,861 in contributions.

"We don't have the vast personal resources or establishment credentials that our opponents have, but we have the grass roots on our side, and we're ahead in the polls," Tarkanian campaign manager Brian Seitchik said.

The figure is well short of the $8.7 million Reid already had Sept. 30, the end of the third-quarter financial reporting cycle.

The campaign of Chachas, a Nevada-born investment banker who is returning to the state from New York to challenge Reid, will report $251,523 in fourth-quarter contributions for a total of $1.9 million to date. That's against spending $227,736, leaving about $1.7 million in cash on hand.

Sue Lowden, Tarkanian's main challenger in the Republican primary, launched her campaign Oct. 1, the first day of the fourth-quarter cycle and hasn't yet reported her totals. The reporting deadline is Jan. 31.

"It is OK, it is not stellar," Jennifer Duffy, an editor with the Cook Political Report, said of Tarkanian's total. "He is going to need to do better."

Tarkanian's campaign said he has received contributions from more than 10,000 individuals in all 50 states and from every Nevada county except Lander.

Of the 2009 total, $271,332 came between his Aug. 6 announcement and the third-quarter reporting deadline of Sept. 30. From Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, he raised an additional $377,290.

Of the contributions, 96 percent were for $200 or less, meaning the same people could donate again.

Tarkanian consultant Jamie Fisfis said most of the money is for use in the crowded primary field that, with Lowden, includes Nevada conservative fixture Sharron Angle, Chachas and at least a half-dozen other candidates.

In statewide opinion polls from Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Tarkanian and Lowden are in a statistical tie at the top, at 28 percent and 26 percent, respectively. Angle was third among Republican primary voters at 13 percent. Voters favored any of the three over Reid in hypothetical general election matchups.

Chachas hasn't lived in Nevada for 20 years, so he has little to no name recognition among voters in statewide polls from Mason-Dixon, although his consultant Ryan Erwin said the campaign has knocked on 3,000 Nevada doors and will continue to press his message.

"He has to spend more money just to get known, and that process that takes some time," Eric Herzik, a political science professor at University of Nevada, Reno, said of Chachas.

Herzik said that Chachas "would have to run an incredible campaign" to surpass Tarkanian, Lowden or even Angle.

Fisfis said the Tarkanian campaign will build a separate, parallel organization to raise funds for the general election, should he win the primary.

"We're just not taking anything for granted," Fisfis said. "To compete with Harry Reid, you are going to have to have the national attention from national donors who raise large amounts."

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861.