Tisei tops Tierney in fundraising

LYNN – Republican challenger Richard Tisei has outraised Democratic U.S. Rep. John Tierney every quarter since announcing his candidacy in November for the Massachusetts Congressional 6th District.Tisei’s campaign announced Friday that the former state senator from Wakefield collected nearly $569,000 between April and June, the most recent campaign-filing date.Tierney’s campaign announced Friday that the Salem Democrat raised more than $400,000 in the same time period.View Tierney’s campaign finance breakdown.Both candidates and their campaigns said the numbers reflected strong support.”I feel like my campaign is really catching fire,” Tisei said.”I think our numbers show that John Tierney is in a strong position to win this campaign,” said Tierney’s campaign spokesman, Grant Herring.View the breakdown of both candidates’first-quarter campaign donations.Tisei also outpaced Tierney in campaign donations from January to March. Tisei raised $354,000 to his opponent’s $325,000 during the first quarter. And he raised more than $300,000 from November to December compared to Tierney’s $166,000, according to Federal Election Commission reports.But Tierney, who has been in office since 1996, started the 2012 campaign season with $400,000 in the bank and now has more than $700,000 on hand, according to FEC reports and statements from his campaign. That’s after purchasing $350,000 of time for TV ads in the Congressional district.By contrast, Tisei only has $150,000 left over after spending $650,000 on TV ads in the region.The Associated Press reports that both campaigns have begun reserving television advertising time in October and November in the weeks leading up to Election Day.The disparity in leftover cash doesn’t worry Tisei, who said he has already raised $100,000 in July after Tierney was forced to defend himself from accusations by his brothers-in-law that the Congressman knew about his in-laws’ illegal offshore gambling ring.”I’m very confident that I have the resources that I need to win,” Tisei said.Also at issue is how much each campaign raised from individual donors versus political action committees, or PACs.Both campaigns have issued challenges to each other to ban third-party spending: Tisei in February and Tierney in May.But negotiations broke down last month, according to Tisei, and on Friday, each campaign continued to throw barbs at the other for accepting outside money.”We negotiated, we tried, but at the end of the day John Tierney wanted two sets of rules: One for him and one for everybody else,” Tisei said.Herring, of Tierney’s campaign, fired back: “It’s very clear Richard Tisei is the hand-picked candidate of Washington Republicans. He’s been raising money with (House Speaker John) Boehner and the Republican leadership,” he said.Each campaign’s full reports, which detail who contributed what, won’t be posted to the FEC until Sunday. But the nonprofit campaign-finance tracking website opensecrets.org reported that after the first quarter, 52 percent of Tierney’s contributions came from individual donors, while 94 percent of Tisei’s contributions came from individual donors.Tisei said he’s “humbled” by how many people are supporting his run for Congress.”It’s because people really want to change, and they’re not just saying it, they’re actually stepping up with their checkbooks and putting their money where their mouth is,” Tisei said.On Friday, Tierney’s campaign chose instead to highlight how many of his donors were Massachusetts-based: Ninety-two percent, which campaign officials said highlights his support in the district.”The outpouring of support from grassroots donors in Massachusetts shows that we will have the resources to win this election,” read a press release from Tierney’s campaign manager, Matt Robinson.Amber Parcher can be reached at [email protected]. Material from the Associated Press was used in this article.