Candidates for the 2013 Raleigh city council and Wake county school board elections have raised more than $440,000 through the end of September, county finance records show.<\/p>\n
Although there is a large disparity in the amount raised by individual candidates \u2014 incumbent Mayoral candidate Nancy McFarlane has raised the most at $148,218 and city council District C challenger Marcus Hill has raised the least at $138, all of it self-funded \u2014 the numbers dwarf in comparison to the kind of money at play in state and national elections.<\/p>\n
Senator Kay Hagan, for example, raised $10,886,424 in her successful 2012 bid for the U.S. Senate, and President Pro Tempore of the North Carolina State Senate Phil Berger raised $1,578,139 in his successful 2012 re-election campaign.<\/p>\n
Voter interest in local, off-year elections is also significantly lower; Wake County saw a 21 percent voter turnout in 2011, compared to 74 percent in 2012.<\/p>\n
\u201cLocal politics tend to be less ideological, they tend to be more about practical concerns,\u201d said Andrew Taylor, a political science professor at N.C. State University.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are less about issues that people really care about, that drive them into public life; being for or against same-sex marriage or abortion, thinking about the direction that the country should go in, the size of government – these aren\u2019t the things that drive local politics,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In local elections, \u201cYou\u2019re not likely to see a television ad for a candidate,\u201d said Brent Laurenz, the executive director for the N.C. Center for Voter Education.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of it is going to be done with mailers, and you see a lot of yard signs and a lot of door-to-door contact from the candidates,\u201d he said. \u201cThe money is used differently, but it can still be impactful and influential. If one candidate were to somehow outraise another tremendously, it would be a real advantage in these lower-dollar races.\u201d<\/p>\n
Money Talks<\/strong> Robert Weltzin, who is running against her, has raised a total of $350, according to campaign finance records, while Venita Peyton reported that she raised just less than $500. Peyton\u2019s only reported expenses to date outside of the $100 candidate registration fee include $99 for stamps, envelopes, cards, paper and ink and $9.23 for a set of checks.<\/p>\n Wayne Maiorano, who is running against incumbent Randy Stagner in the heated City Council Distract A race, has raised the second-highest amount among all the candidates with a total of $72,680. Stagner reported that he has raised $38,225 \u2013 more than the $21,362 he had brought in by this point for his successful 2011 bid for the seat, although $20,000 of this year\u2019s funding comes from money Stagner himself loaned the campaign.<\/p>\n Maiorano\u2019s fundraising efforts have enabled him to invest a significant amount in traditional local electioneering expenses \u2013 more than $20,00 was spent on direct mailers \u2013 along with a few things most other candidates simply could not afford, such as an $800 photo shoot.<\/p>\n Hill, the aforementioned District C candidate, has put his $138 toward more pragmatic purposes – $100 went towards the candidate registration fee, and the remaining $38 was spent on his web site. The incumbent, Eugene Weeks, has raised a total of $1,305 and the other challenger, Raquel Williams, has raised $633.<\/p>\n Don McIntyre, who is running in District 1 for the Wake county school board, has raised a total of $4,333 to his opponent Tom Benton\u2019s $7,391, and most of his disbursements to date have been for the kinds of expenses Laurenz cited: $5.34 for thank-you notes, $400 for door hangars, $1,490 for yard signs.<\/p>\n
\nThe amount of money raised by the candidates naturally affects the ways in which that money can be spent. Mayor McFarlane, for example, spent more than twice the combined total raised by her challengers, $2,064, on catering an event held this past summer, according to county record.<\/p>\n