Campaign has $1M cash on hand; total raised stands at $2.2M; Shontel Brown reports $640k for Q1.
Ohio 11th Democratic Congressional candidate Nina Turner announced today that, as of the end of quarter FEC filing deadline, her campaign had raised some $2.2 million with $1.55 million raised in the quarter ending March 31, 2021. Her cash on hand at the end of the quarter was over 1 million dollars.
County councilwoman and local Democratic Party chair Shontel Brown, announced today that she has raised a total of $680,000 to date, including $640,000 in the first three months of 2021. Campaign spokesman Ronnie Holman said in a release that 55% of Brown's contributions are from Northeast Ohio.
Turner's campaign spoke to its grassroots nature in a press release citing an average contribution of about $28.00 last quarter. Overall, the campaign reports receiving 77,578 individual contributions, representing every state and the District of Columbia.
The campaign claims contributions from every zip code in the district, attesting to an unusually broad base of support, given the district’s wide wealth disparities and its geographic spread from northeast of Cleveland to Akron. Overall, the district is one of the nation’s poorest.
The release said Ohio is in the top three in terms of total dollars raised and number of individual contributions, with an average Ohio donor giving about $48.
The most prevalent reported profession among Turner donors are teachers, followed by retail workers and then health care workers.
Turner has pledged not to accept any corporate PAC money. She also signed a No Fossil Fuel Pledge not to accept more than $200 from oil, gas or coal executives, lobbyists or PACs.
Turner and Brown two of seven announced candidates for the August 3 Democratic Primary. The others are former state senators Jeff Johnson and Shirley Smith, former state representatives John Barnes and Bryan Flannery, and Navy veteran Tariq Shabazz.
When texted for comment on this article, Flannery campaign manager, Jerry Austin noted that Flannery declared officially only last week and that his total "will not be reflective of the commitments he has."
Shirley Smith responded with a brief message saying she would file by the April 15 deadline and indicated her results would be modest.
This is a special election to choose a successor to Marcia Fudge, who vacated the seat to become Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The Democratic primary winner will face off against a Republican in November. Laverne Jones Gore, who ran unsuccessfully against Fudge last year, is the presumptive GOP nominee to fill Fudge's unexpired term.
The district will be redrawn later this year, so whoever wins in November will be running in a significantly different district in 2022 to remain in Congress.
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