3rd District candidate Gibbons shows fundraising power

April 9, 2010

Republican Jim Gibbons raised $161,500 toward his campaign for Congress from Iowa’s 3rd District in the first quarter of the year, an amount GOP observers say establishes him as the large field’s top fundraising threat.

Gibbons’ total approaches what he raised last year after getting into the race in November, and comes as seven Republicans have lined up to challenge Rep. Leonard Boswell, a Democrat from Des Moines.

Gibbons, a former Wells Fargo financial adviser from Des Moines, has collected more than $368,000, and had about $265,000 on hand at the beginning of April, his campaign said.

Reports for money raised during the quarter are due next week. Gibbons’ campaign provided his totals to The Des Moines Register on Thursday.

None of the other six Republicans running in the June 8 primary had filed their reports with the Federal Election Commission, nor had Boswell.

Gibbons raised $207,000 last year after entering the race in November, more than Boswell’s fourth-quarter effort in 2009. Still, Boswell had more than $462,000 in his campaign account at the end of the year, more than twice as much as Gibbons in January.

Des Moines Republican strategist David Kochel, who is neutral in the primary, said Gibbons’ early 2010 fundraising is impressive, given the size of the GOP field.

The 3rd District Republican primary is one of the largest in the country this year.

“It establishes him as the best-funded candidate in the primary, and that matters a lot,” said Kochel, a consultant and former executive director of the Iowa Republican Party. “I assume he is going to outpace everyone in total contributions and the number of contributions.”

Also running are Scott Batcher of West Des Moines, Pat Bertroche of Urbandale, Dave Funk of Runnells, Mark Rees of West Des Moines, Jason Welch of Grimes and Brad Zaun of Urbandale.

Gibbons is well-known among some in Iowa as a former wrestling champion at Iowa State University, a championship coach and an on-air wrestling commentator. But he moved to the district from rural Perry only recently and is a first-time candidate for elected office.

Zaun, a two-term state senator and former Urbandale mayor, is a more familiar name to some voters in the district, which includes Polk County and 11 rural central Iowa counties.

A poll taken by Zaun’s campaign showed that Zaun was preferred by 26 percent of primary voters, with Gibbons a distant second, but with almost 60 percent undecided.

And although some signs suggest Boswell could be in for a challenging re-election campaign, he has survived challenges backed by the National Republican Congressional Committee three times in the past eight years.

But The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll showed in February that 52 percent of Iowans in the district said they would rather replace their federal representatives than keep them, more than in any of the state’s four other districts.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland congressman, was in Des Moines on Wednesday, raising money for Boswell.