{"id":9036,"date":"2011-10-10T22:49:12","date_gmt":"2011-10-11T02:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=9036"},"modified":"2011-10-11T13:57:01","modified_gmt":"2011-10-11T17:57:01","slug":"powerful-dem-and-gop-donors-go-blow-for-blow-in-school-board-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2011\/10\/10\/powerful-dem-and-gop-donors-go-blow-for-blow-in-school-board-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Powerful Dem and GOP Donors Go Blow for Blow in School Board Race"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

District 3<\/span><\/p>\n

Heather Losurdo (R)<\/strong>
\nTotal funds raised – $40,244
\nContributions of $50 or less – $4,210<\/p>\n

*Kevin Hill (D)<\/strong>
\nTotal funds raised – $24,055
\nContributions of $50 or less – $2,120<\/p>\n

Jennifer Mansfield (U)<\/strong>
\nTotal funds raised – $5,802
\nContributions of $50 or less – $696<\/p>\n

Eric Wayne Squires (R)<\/strong>
\nPledged to not exceed fundraising threshold of $1,000<\/p>\n

District 4 <\/span><\/p>\n

*Keith Sutton (D)<\/strong>
\nTotal funds raised – $22,272
\nContributions of $50 or less \u2013 none reported<\/p>\n

Venita Peyton (R)<\/strong>
\nTotal funds raised – $730
\nContributions of $50 or less – $80
\n**This is according to the last report Peyton filed. The most recent report due, is not on file for her campaign.<\/em><\/p>\n

District 5 <\/span><\/p>\n

James Martin (D)<\/strong>
\nTotal funds raised – $31,534
\nContributions of $50 or less – $3,210<\/p>\n

Cynthia Matson (R)<\/strong>
\nTotal funds raised – $8,517
\nContributions of $50 or less – $465<\/p>\n

District 6<\/span><\/p>\n

Christine Kushner (D)<\/strong>
\nTotal funds raised – $50,406
\nContributions of $50 or less – $6,123<\/p>\n

Donna Williams (R)<\/strong>
\nTotal funds raised – $41,370
\nContributions of $50 or less – $4,879<\/p>\n

Mary Ann Weathers<\/strong>
\n$1,000 threshold<\/p>\n

George Morgan <\/strong>
\n$1,000 threshold<\/p>\n

District 8 <\/span><\/p>\n

*Ron Margiotta (R) <\/strong>
\nTotal funds raised – $52,748
\nContributions of $50 or less – $3,033<\/p>\n

Susan Evans (D)<\/strong>
\nTotal funds raised – $37,524
\nContributions of $50 or less – $4,401<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

CORRECTION APPENDED: Bob Luddy is the founder and chair of the board of directors for Thales Academy, not owner as originally reported.<\/em><\/p>\n

Two couples have dominated the donations for this year\u2019s school board race. Art and Katherine Pope have given $24,000 to various Republican campaigns, and John and Ann Campbell have given $32,000 to Democratic candidates.<\/p>\n

Art Pope is widely considered to have been the most influential person in North Carolina politics in recent years, effecting everything from the state House and Senate races to the last Wake County school board election. A News and Observer records request turned up an email<\/a> in which Pope was referred to as \u201cthe architect\u201d of the neighborhood majority\u2019s win in 2009.<\/p>\n

Art Pope is the owner of Variety Wholesaler Inc. a retail chain, which operates various discount retail stores like Bargain Town, Value Mart and Super Dollar. The stores are often found in low-income areas.<\/p>\n

John and Ann Campbell are the President and CEO of Campbell Alliance, a pharmaceutical consulting firm. Both are registered Democrats.<\/p>\n

Art and Katherine Pope each gave the $4,000 limit to Donna Williams, Heather Losurdo and Ron Margiotta.<\/p>\n

The Campbell\u2019s did the same thing for all the opposing campaigns: Christine Kushner, Kevin Hill and Susan Evans. They also gave $4,000 each to Jim Martin who is running in a heavily Democratic district against Republican Cynthia Matson.<\/p>\n

Other big players include Bob Luddy who gave $16,000 — $4,000 each to the Williams, Losurdo, Margiotta and Matson campaigns.<\/p>\n

Luddy is a conservative businessman and the founder of Thales Academy, whose name is often mentioned with Pope’s. He was also one of the biggest donors in the 2009 campaigns.<\/p>\n

On the Democratic side, James Goodmon, owner of local broadcast giant Capitol Broadcasting and WRAL, gave $2,000 to Kushner and Martin and $3,000 to Hill and Evans.<\/p>\n

The only other key donor at the $1,000 level or higher is a neurosurgeon named James Fulgham. He gave $1,000 to Williams, $1,500 to Losurdo and $4,000 to Margiotta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Campaign finance records show dedicated donors on both the Republican and Democrat sides are donating thousands of dollars to multiple campaigns in the race to see who will take control of the Wake County school board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24024,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[214,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9036"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}