Active December Senate Schedule Cost Lincoln $300,000
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) lost out on hundreds of thousands of dollar in campaign receipts as a result of events that were cancelled in December to accommodate the Senate’s hectic late session voting schedule, according to estimates by the Senator’s campaign on Friday.
“We missed out on about $300,000 worth of fundraising from a handful of events that had to be put off in December,” said Katie Laning Niebaum, Lincoln’s campaign spokeswoman.
Lincoln certainly wasn’t the only Member to have to reshuffle her holiday fundraising schedule due to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid‘s (D-Nev.) decision to force the chamber to remain in session on weekends and hold votes on Fridays and Mondays because of the health care debate. Even Reid, who is facing the re-election fight of his career, was forced to scrap some events, including a major $1,000-a-ticket fundraiser in New Orleans.
But, the Arkansas Senator, who is viewed by some Republicans as the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent of the cycle now that Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) has decided to step down, is one Senator for whom every dollar will be crucial this cycle.
Still, Lincoln’s camp didn’t complain when it was forced to punt on some of it’s planned events.
Lincoln “recognizes that the larger priority is achieving common-sense health insurance reform,” Niebaum said last month.
Niebaum said Friday afternoon that the campaign’s fourth quarter fundraising numbers were unavailable. At the end of September Lincoln had over $4 million in cash on hand while one of her top potential GOP opponents, state Sen. Gilbert Baker, banked just over half a million dollars in a single month of fundraising.