A Fundraising Horse Race in NY-16 Dem Primary
It’s a Bowman – Latimer fundraising horse race in the NY-16 Democratic primary where sitting Democratic Congressman Jamaal Bowman is being challenged by Rye guy and Westchester County Executive George Latimer. Both campaigns filed their election reporting late Wednesday night, just ahead of the midnight deadline with the Federal Election Commission.
- Both campaigns have raised $1.4 million to date.
- Latimer raised the entire amount since launching his campaign in December, so this is his campaign’s first reporting period and a strong start while Bowman has been raising for multiple reporting periods.
- Latimer has more dry powder than Bowman. The Bowman campaign has spent over half of the funds raised to date with $631K in the bank as of 12/31 and Latimer has spent less than 10 percent of funds raised with $1.3M in the bank as of 12/31.
The next reporting period is April 15th and then again 12 days prior to the June 25th primary vote.
Here is the summary of the FEC filings from the current period:
| BOWMAN FOR CONGRESS | GEORGE LATIMER FOR CONGRESS | |
| Total Receipts | ||
| 10/01/2023 – 12/31/2023 | $735,831.78 | $1,429,879.22 |
| Election Cycle-to-Date (Total as of 12/31/2023) | $1,434,674.27 | $1,429,879.22 |
| Total Disbursements | ||
| 10/01/2023 – 12/31/2023 | $286,850.25 | $108,792.20 |
| Election Cycle-to-Date (Total as of 12/31/2023) | $859,838.83 | $108,792.20 |
| Debits owed (as of 12/31/2023) | $12,351.75 | $0 |
| Ending Cash on Hand (as of 12/31/2023) | $630,663.08 | $1,321,087.02 |
See all Bowman for Congress FEC filings
See all George Latimer for Congress FEC filings
A 2 to 1 advantage on cash on hand (which is the most important data point at this point of the primary cycle) is not a “horse race” especially when the advantage is held by the challenger and not the incumbent. Plus Federal-level office fund raising is much different (and difficult) than state or local races where an individual contribution limit for congressional candidates is $3,300 where single contribution limits for either the County Executive office ($30,000) or NY State senate race is $5,000 (it used to be $11,800 until recent changes in the campaign finance laws.) Attracting dollars over attracting a bag full of quarters is a lot less work for the candidate; obviously, the challenger here is pretty good at scooping up the quarters too. Other potential donors like to see that too…
Truth be told these are very good numbers for George Latimer…this will be a very interesting race to watch. Impacting this race will be how the final congressional districts are set; they are being redesigned for the second time since the 2020 census…welcome to NY State politics.