WASHINGTON – Democrat Nate McMurray entered the home stretch of his third congressional campaign with a financial edge over his opponent, Republican Rep. Chris Jacobs of Orchard Park.
But McMurray, a former Grand Island town supervisor, also leads all local congressional candidates in a more ignoble contest. He received more letters from the Federal Election Commission about sloppy campaign filings than any other candidate.
Federal campaign finance documents filed this week show that as of Sept. 30, McMurray's campaign had $350,413 left to spend in the last five weeks of his rematch against Jacobs, who beat him in a June special election in New York's 27th District. Jacobs had just $180,336 left.
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Just as notably, though, FEC records show that the agency has written to McMurray nine times since January 2019 to ask him to correct his campaign finance reports. Such letters are relatively common, but Jacobs got only three. And according to the Center for Responsive Politics, of all the candidates for the nation's 435 House seats this year, only five got more complaint letters from the FEC than McMurray did.
McMurray attributed his relatively strong financial standing to small grassroots donors – and the FEC letters to the compliance firm whom he recently let go that had been handling his campaign finance work.
"It's amazing that we're competitive at all when we don't take corporate money," McMurray said. "We've got so much support from small donors."
Sometimes, though, it has appeared that McMurray has gotten too much support from small donors. In an Aug. 10 letter, the FEC named three donors who gave McMurray more than the $2,800 legal limit – which may be a reflection of the kind of campaign McMurray is running.
"Campaigns that receive a lot of small recurring checks from donors will tend to run afoul of limits more often than campaigns that collect large single checks –consequently the former would tend to receive more (FEC letters)," said Alex Baumgart, individual contributions researcher for the Center for Responsive Politics.
That Aug. 10 FEC letter also said McMurray may not have filed required reports on last-minute contributions before the June 23 special election, and asked him to fulfill the requirement that campaigns name the staffers they have been paying.
Earlier FEC letters listed similar problems with McMurray's campaign finance reports, and he cleared up those problems by amending those reports. As of Friday, however, he had not amended the report the FEC complained about in that Aug. 10 letter.
McMurray said that in the wake of the problems, his campaign changed compliance firms, which compile those campaign finance filings.
"I don't know the full details, but I said: Look, whatever it is, let's get a better compliance firm," he said. That firm was in touch with the FEC last week to iron out any remaining issues.
"I think we're in good shape now," McMurray said.
Jacobs' campaign, predictably, jumped at the chance to comment on McMurray's campaign finance disclosures.
“I don’t think anyone will be surprised to learn Nate McMurray’s campaign is an ethical disaster, as campaigns are a reflection of the candidate," said Cam Savage, Jacobs' campaign strategist.
McMurray's campaign filings make clear, though, that television viewers in and around 27th District will be seeing plenty of him in ads in the coming weeks. He raised $231,568 between July 14 and the end of September, while spending only $121,007.
He said his campaign has been saving money for an advertising push near the end of the fall campaign. But now, with the election looming less than three weeks away, "we're going to spend all of it," he said.
Jacobs spent plenty – $1.57 million – on the special election against McMurray and a Republican primary the same day. He raised $284,161 between July 14 and Sept. 30 and spent $148,019.
“Chris Jacobs has out-raised each and every opponent he’s faced this year while doing what no candidate in the country has done, winning both a hard-fought primary and a hard-fought special election in the same day," Savage said. "That campaign has never slowed and that is why Chris is well-positioned to win again in November.”
The campaign finance filings showed that in terms of dollars, McMurray and Jacobs are now much more closely matched than the two candidates in the Southern Tier's 23rd District. There, Republican Rep. Tom Reed of Corning had $1.04 million on hand as of Sept. 30, while Democrat Tracy Mitrano had $349,902.
Reed, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and co-chair of the House Problem Solvers Caucus, raised $583,093 in the third quarter and spent $511,632.
“We appreciate that so many New Yorkers are joining our problem solvers movement and contributing to our campaign," Reed said. "As always, we will continue to listen to and work for New Yorkers and all Americans.”
Mitrano, a cybersecurity expert from Penn Yan, raised $483,165 and spent $485,733 as part of her vigorous challenge against Reed. She also raised another $100,475 in a joint fundraising committee she has with the state Democratic Committee.
"We genuinely are a grassroots campaign," Mitrano said. "And that means that people don't send boatloads of money in advance. They watch campaigns, they feel the momentum. And obviously, they have been responding to us."
Meanwhile, the biggest financial mismatch among local congressional races is taking place in the Buffalo-based 26th District. There, Rep. Brian Higgins, a Buffalo Democrat, was sitting on a campaign war chest of $1.15 million as of Sept. 30. Meanwhile, his Republican opponent, Ricky Donovan, had filed no campaign finance reports with the FEC.
