Democrat Senate candidate raised $272k in Senate race between April and June

By David Skolnick | July 11, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, a Democrat running for the 2016 U.S. Senate race, raised $272,136 between April and June – about one-third of what his campaign collected in the previous three months.

Sittenfeld raised $757,043 during the first three months of the year. That was more than the $672,073 ex-Gov. Ted Strickland, another Democrat in the Senate race, collected in the first quarter.

But Strickland raised $1 million in the past three months compared to $272,136 for Sittenfeld.

As of June 30, Sittenfeld’s campaign said it had $725,000 cash on hand. Strickland’s campaign said it had $1.2 million cash on hand as of that date.

“We’ve raised over $1 million during the first six months of this campaign,” said Dale Butland, Sittenfeld’s campaign spokesman. “That’s an impressive achievement for any candidate running statewide for the first time, and it puts us squarely on track to have the resources we need to get our message out on television before the [March 2016] primary.”

A recent poll shows Strickland beating incumbent Republican Rob Portman by 6 percentage points. The same poll has Portman beating Sittenfeld by 25 percentage points.

Portman raised $2.9 million in the second quarter, and $2.75 million in the first quarter. His campaign has $10 million cash on hand.

“We’ve never believed this race will ultimately be decided by who has the biggest campaign war chest,” Butland said.

He added: “It’s going to take time for P.G. to become widely known and for his ideas to take hold.” The primary is eight months away.