Martin campaign plays smoke and mirrors with fundraising numbers

LAS VEGAS- If there's one number that Andrew Martin wants you to know about his congressional campaign, it's that he has $200,000 cash on hand at the end of this first quarter fundraising period.  All the other numbers, his staff would prefer you didn't know.

Martin's campaign sent out a press release today titled "DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE ANDREW MARTIN FILES FEC REPORT - REPORTS OVER $200,000 CASH ON HAND."

"The residents of Nevada's 3rd Congressional District are tired of the status quo," said Martin spokesperson Vin Gopal in the release.  "They are tired of the Washington D.C. political establishment telling them who they should vote for.  They want change and that is why they are attracted to the Andrew Martin for Congress Campaign.  As more people hear about Andrew's campaign to change Washington DC, they are attracted to it, which is why our support continues to increase every day."

Undoubtedly, Martin has supporters in the 3rd Congressional District, but whatever support they are giving him is not financial.

The $200,000 cash on hand that Martin is reporting is largely the product of yet another huge personal loan to the campaign from Martin.  In this reporting period alone, Martin loaned his campaign $175,000, information that was noticeably absent from his campaign press release.  Taken together with his previous loans to the campaign, Martin has now put nearly $300,000 of personal money into his effort to win the 3rd district Democratic nomination.

Fundraising from sources other than the candidate totaled $30,000, according to a later statement from Gopal.

The press release also played up the support that he has received from within the state of Nevada, claiming that Martin's campaign had "over 100 contributors from Nevada alone."  In previous quarters, as reported by PolitickerNV.com Mar. 21, less than 4 percent of Martin's contributors had been from within Nevada. 

The problem with those "over 100 contributors," however, is that nearly all of them, according to Martin finance director Marcus Brandon, contributed less than $200 to the campaign.  Due to federal campaign finance laws that require disclosure of contributors' names, home states and occupations only if they made contributions in excess of $200, the number of in-state contributors will not be independently verifiable.

"We have well over 100 people who have contributed in the state of Nevada to his campaign," Brandon said Wednesday in a call set up by newly minted campaign manager Becky Isas. "You just don't see it because it's not on the itemized reports.  So we're going to put that in the release and we would like for people to report that."

Brandon acknowledged that Martin is putting a lot of money into his own campaign, but wanted to further draw attention to the number of small, unverifiable donors. 

After personally asking this reporter to help get the message out, Brandon said "[Martin] has the ability to self-fund the campaign but what we would like to get out is, you know, people keep talking about Nevada contributors."

"If you look at Daskas' report, we'd be comparable to the amount of people.  He might be getting big $2,000 donations from the establishment, but I'll bet you the number of contributors in the state of Nevada is probably very close."

As of the Dec. 31 reporting deadline, Robert Daskas, the other Democrat seeking the 3rd District nod, had received 189 individual contributions in excess of $200 from 149 Nevadans.