FreedomWorks has said recently that they intend to double-down on the Utah Senate race in spite of exceptionally weak local support for their efforts. I thought it would be fun to quantify how weak local support for FreedomWorks really is.
Tracking total Utah individual contributions as a proxy for in-state sentiment, I pulled some rough numbers from the Federal Elections Commission:
- Orrin Hatch – $451,000
- Dan Liljenquist – $104,950
- FreedomWorks – $1,050
From a “money where your mouth is” perspective, that means Senator Hatch’s wallet-support in Utah is around 81% among Republicans, which is a bit higher than the polls show so far. Dan Liljenquist sits around 19%, which seems within striking range of recent polls. FreedomWorks by contrast lurks at an abysmal 0.19%…or basically no local support at all!
Digging deeper, the story gets even more bleak. It turns out that the $1,050 raised by the FreedomWorks Super PAC here in Utah came from four (4) people: Robert Blass, John Oberhansly, Thomas Powers, and of course their biggest contributor Paul Padgett who contributed a whopping $350!
With support so weak that you could fit their entire Utah contributor-base inside a sub-compact rental car, is any wonder reception to FreedomWorks’ over-reach in our state has been so negative?