Becerra coasts to campaign finance lead over opponents

Incumbent Attorney General Xavier Becerra has a huge financial lead over his rivals, according to the latest campaign finance reports.

With five weeks left before the June primary, Becerra is sitting on $3.7 million. He has raised $994,000 this year.

His Democratic rival, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, has $876,000 cash on hand. He’s raised $442,500 this year. Jones has also kept some momentum in other ways, continuing to line up labor and newspaper endorsements despite facing an incumbent from his own party.

But Jones has also spent more than $1 million this year, compared to just $486,000 for Becerra. This makes sense given the calculus the two men face: Becerra is all but assured of being among the top two finishers in the primary, and can therefore stockpile money for the fall race. If Jones doesn’t fend off a pair of Republicans in his bid to earn the number two spot in June, his race is over.

Those Republicans are trailing in the fundraising race, however. Retired El Dorado County Judge Steven C. Bailey reported raising nearly $70,000 this year, not counting $14,600 he loaned to his campaign, and has spent $122,000. Bailey has just $13,000 in the bank.

Eric P. Early, the managing partner of Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae LLP in Los Angeles, has raised about $107,000 this year, but he has spent $223,000. He also loaned his own campaign $70,000 in February and March. Early has $77,000 in the bank.

The men will compete for the party’s endorsement at the California Republican Party Convention in San Diego this coming weekend. A third announced Republican, Auburn-based attorney Nina Salarno-Besselman, has raised no money this year and has just over $10,000 in her account.

The race has been playing out in the absence of publicly available polling.

Becerra has spent $620,000 on campaign consultants, and also invested heavily in information technology and travel.

Meanwhile, Jones has been spending big to increase his name identification. His campaign has spent $812,000 on slate mailers, campaign literature and postage, compared to about $55,000 for Becerra. These are generally seen as a lower-cost way to reach voters, given then high cost of television advertising in California.

“I don’t think either side has enough money to do a substantial television campaign,” said Jones’s campaign consultant Parke Skelton. “We’ve been focusing on slates and digital.”

Jones has recently begun tweeting about a Commission on Judicial Performance inquiry into alleged misconduct by Bailey while he was still in office. On June 11, less than a week after the primary, Bailey will face a CJP hearing in Sacramento on 11 disciplinary counts, including not disclosing financial ties and fundraising while he was still a sitting judge. Bailey has denied the charges.

“I think it’s a possibility if he consolidates too much of the Republican vote, he’s a threat for second,” Skelton said.

He added that Bailey has wrapped up many of the “hard right” groups in the state, including the California Republican Assembly and the Gun Owners of California.

Early said that on top of stronger fundraising this year than Bailey, he has his own impressive endorsement list. This including former Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley, Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens and the Congress of California Republicans. His campaign will soon begin an advertising campaign on multiple mediums, Early said.

He declined to comment on Bailey’s CJP situation, and said this is part of a wider policy of not going negative against Bailey.

“I believe in Reagan’s 11th Commandment, I’m not going after another Republican,” Early said. “My focus is on these Democrats.”

Since the beginning of the race, Becerra has raised at least $544,000 from attorneys, while Jones reported more than $330,000. But given disclosing a job title with a donation is optional, actual numbers can be hard to determine.

Early’s campaign disclosure shows just over $70,000 from attorneys, but he said the real number is $107,100. Some of these attorneys are in-house counsel, he said, or reported their job in ways that don’t show up. Bailey appears to have the smallest amount from attorneys — just a few thousand — but has bested Early in terms of his overall small dollar donations.

The campaign disclosures also show that Becerra has returned more than $71,000 to individual donors. There are many reasons campaigns return money, including bounced checks, donor requests and contributions that violate dollar limits. Those getting money back include a sitting judge and a pair of disbarred attorneys.

The Becerra and Bailey campaigns did not reply to calls seeking comment by press time.