Heller campaign donations surge to $1.1 million in 4th quarter

By Karoun Demirjian

Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012 | 4:21 p.m.

Sen. Dean Heller’s 2012 campaign picked up the fundraising pace significantly in the last quarter of 2011, pulling in $1.1 million.

It was almost double what he had raised the previous quarter and enough to tie his challenger, Rep. Shelley Berkley, who outraised him almost 2-to-1 the quarter before.

“You can feel the momentum,” Mike Slanker, lead consultant on Heller’s campaign, said in a news release. “Thousands of people from all across Nevada responded in just a few short months to Dean Heller’s message of smaller government, a balanced federal budget, and getting Nevadans back to work.”

The fourth-quarter total represents 2,855 donors, 2,100 of whom donated $200 or less, and 1,900 of whom were first-time Heller donors.

Heller now has $3.65 million cash on hand. That’s only slightly less than Berkley, who has $3.75 million and has been spending more than her opponent campaigning.

Berkley’s $1.1 million comes from a broader base: she had 4,101 campaign donors in the fourth quarter, which ran from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31. A spokesman for her campaign said her totals "clearly shows that Berkley has the momentum in this race."

Nevada Democrats did not show any signs of being ruffled by Heller’s closing the fundraising gap in the fourth quarter of 2011.

“This is what he should have been pulling in every quarter,” said Zac Petkanas, a spokesman for the Nevada Democrats who is assisting the Berkley campaign. “The fact that it took months of browbeating by DC Republicans to get there should tell you how seriously he’s taking this Senate race.”

In the third quarter of 2011, Heller’s campaign pulled in only $675,000 to Berkley’s $1.2 million.

After that disappointing showing, Heller picked up the pace of his fundraising, holding at least six events in the fourth quarter, according to the Sunlight Foundation’s event tracker, PoliticalPartyTime.org.

Before that, things were a little more equal. In the second quarter — Heller and Berkley’s first as official candidates for the Senate seat John Ensign left back in May — Heller raised $672,000 to $695,000.

Berkley was outraising Heller a little more than the numbers show. He declared his candidacy on March 15, while she made her official announcement on April 8.

If they’re essentially tied for dollars brought in now, it’s really no surprise: they’re about neck and neck in the polls.

The last time voters were polled about the matchup, Berkley scored 44.4 percent while Heller took 43.2 percent, well within the margin of error.