2024 Election notebook: Dems raise $82K in races for county councilor, commissioner
Based on required pre-primary filings by Democrats in Monroe County races, about $82,000 has been raised by nine candidates for county commissioner or county councilor in the May 7 primary.
The pre-primary reporting period ended April 12. The required CFA-4 documents were due by noon on Friday.
The four Democrats running for the three at-large county councilor nominations raised a total of $15,940.54. Leading the way was incumbent Cheryl Munson, who raised $5,024.60. She was followed by challengers David Henry and Matt Caldie, who raised $4,289.94 and $3,800.00 respectively. Incumbent Trent Deckard raised $2,826.00.
The two Democrats running for the District 2 county commissioner nomination raised $24,184.45, with challenger Peter Iversen collecting more than twice as much as incumbent Julie Thomas. Iverson raised $17,024.42 compared to $7,160.03 for Thomas.
The three Democrats running for the District 3 county commissioner nomination raised a combined $42,521.21. Incumbent Penny Githens raised $20,523.85 compared to $17,593.00 by challenger Jody Madeira. Challenger Steve Volan raised $4,404.36.
The raw totals don’t give a complete picture.
In the race for District 3 county commissioner, the total for Githens was helped by two $1,000 contributions that had to be reported on a CFA-11 form, which is for “large contributions”—if they come in after the pre-primary period ends, but before the election.
The total for Githens also reflects a $5,000 loan to the campaign from herself, and another nearly $2,700 from her District 62 state representative campaign committee. Subtracting the self-funded amounts would put the total raised by Githens at around $12,700.
In the District 3 commissioner race, subtracting the $3,529.36 that Volan has contributed to his own campaign puts his total at $875.00.
In the District 3 commissioner race, Madeira’s total includes a $5,000 in-kind contribution from MyersCroxton Group, which is a Bloomington advertising and brand design firm. Madeira also received $2,345 from Shruti Rana, the former Bloomington city councilmember. Another $3,250.00 in contributions to Madeira’s campaign came from builders Authentic Homes, Inc and Keystone Construction.
In the race for District 2 county commissioner, neither candidate filed forms that show any self-funding. Thomas received a total of $3,000 from her two colleagues on the county board of commissioners—$2,000 from Lee Jones and $1,000 from Penny Githens. In the District 2 county commissioner race, challenger Peter Iversen received a total of $10,437.50 from three different builders—Wininger Construction, Inc., Authentic Homes, Inc., and Dishman Construction.
In the race for the county council at-large nominations, Cheryl Munson’s biggest contribution came from Anne and Jeff Bingaman at $1,000 with another $600 coming from county commissioner Lee Jones. The rest of Munson’s contributions were $200 or less. Unitemized contributions accounted for $2,109.19 of Munson’s total.
Also in the at-large county council race, David Henry’s biggest donor was Marsha Bradford at $500, with the rest giving $300 or less. Henry got contributions from 42 different donors, which was more than twice as many as any other county council candidate.
In the race for at-large county council, Matt Caldie’s biggest donor was Shruti Rana at $1,300.
Incumbent county councilor Trent Deckard donated $800 to his own campaign, with the rest of his contributions coming in at $250 or less.
Several people gave to more than one of the nine campaigns. State senator Shelli Yoder (either personally or through her own campaign) contributed $100 each to seven of the candidates—Caldie, Deckard, Henry, Madeira, Volan, Iversen, and Thomas.
Former Bloomington city councilmember Jeff Richardson gave a total of $2,100 to four different campaigns—those for Deckard, Henry, Iversen, and Madeira. The biggest amount went to Madeira, at $1,500.
Former Bloomington city councilmember Shruti Rana (either personally or through her campaign committee) gave a total of $3,745 to three candidates—Caldie, Iversen, and Madeira. Caldie received $1,300 from Rana, while Madeira received $2,345.
Former Bloomington mayor John Fernandez and Cook Medical vice president Dan Peterson each split $300 evenly among the same three candidates—Henry, Iversen, and Madeira.
Monroe County capital improvement board (CIB) president John Whikehart gave $100 each to Deckard and Thomas. Former Bloomington mayor John Hamilton gave $200 to Caldie and $500 to Madeira.
Former mayor Mark Kruzan gave Deckard $100 and Thomas $300.
Six donors contributed to both Madeira and Caldie’s campaigns—David Gamage, Russell Gamage, Shelli Yoder, John Hamilton, Sue Wanzer, and Shruti Rana.
Nine donors contributed to both Madeira and Iveren’s campaigns—Authentic Homes, Inc., Jeff Richardson, James Regester, Shruti Rana, Kent Rodgers, Katharine Liell, John Fernandez, Gregory Alexander, Daniel Peterson.
The B Square has compiled the campaign finance filings into a shared Google Sheet, working mostly from smartphone images taken at Monroe County’s Election Central late Friday afternoon. When the election division staff are able to scan and upload the filings, they will be available on Monroe County’s website.
The basic data in the spreadsheet includes geocoded Lat/Long coordinates for readers who want to check out the geographic distribution of the contributions.
The totals for individual contributions to each candidate square up with the totals they list on the first page, except the one for David Henry, which is off by $335. Henry told The B Square that is due to a duplicate page that was initially included, but then deleted, without subtracting the subtotal on the duplicate page. Henry said he would be filing an amended CFA-4 on Monday.
