Republicans Lead Democrats in Executive Council Money Race

The 2014 campaign primaries are on Sept. 9, and four District 5 Executive Council candidates – Jennifer Daler and Diane Sheehan on the Democratic side and Steve Hattamer and David Wheeler on the Republican side – are campaigning to replace Debora Pignatelli.

But when it comes to the money race, two candidates – Hattamer and Wheeler, both Republicans – are dominating their Democratic opponents, according to pre-primary campaign filings with the Secretary of State on Aug. 20.

Hattamer raised nearly $91,000, including a $12,600 personal loan he made to the campaign, a $5,000 contribution from Nashua Anesthesia Partners, and $7,000 in donations from the American Society of Anesthesiologists PAC.

Many of the other donations were from people in the medical field, doctors and nurses, from all around the country, including California, Nevada, Texas, and Florida.

So far, Hattamer has spent about $35,000, including about $18,500 on printing costs at Printer Square, Inc., in Manchester, and $8,000 to LG Strategies of Manchester for campaign management services.

Wheeler has raised nearly $22,000, including nearly $8,000 loaned to the campaign, with part of that money going to printing and mailing. The rest of the donations were from individuals in increments of $30 to $500. Wheeler spent a little less than $5,000, nearly all of it on printing and postage.

In a statement, Wheeler said the “amazing thing” about Hattamer’s donations was that his “conflicts of interests would keep him from voting on medical issues in the Executive Council. I wonder if his big donors know this.”

On the Democratic side, the campaign cash was much smaller.

Jennifer Daler, according to her filing, raised a little more than $6,900, including $553 transferred from her state representative campaign account. Most of the donations were in between $10 and $100, including a couple of political action committee donations which were $250 each.

Daler spent about $3,000, about $2,300 of which went to printing and envelopes. Heading into the homestretch, she has about $3,800 on hand.

Sheehan raised slightly less than Daler, about $5,700, but is currently running a deficit of about $6,000.

Sheehan, too, had numerous small donations and a couple of political action committee donations too, from firefighter organizations. All but 15 of her donations came from within the district.

On the spending side, Sheehan dropped more than $2,000 with the Mesh Interactive Agency for design work and nearly $3,500 for signs at Thriftco Printer. Another $2,760 was spent on video production by New Sky Productions and $1,000 was donated to the New Hampshire Democratic Party. The candidate also spent $447 on Facebook ads and most of the rest on postage.

District 5 covers more than 30 cities and towns in the middle to southwest side of the state, running from the west in Swansey, to Nashua and Hudson in the east, up through New Boston, Weare, Dunbarton, and Hillsborough, and then back down to Peterborough.