Ottawa

Following the money

Alice Funke reviews the third quarter fundraising returns.

For the first time ever, since early 2008, the NDP has reported a higher national quarterly contributions total than the Liberal Party. The upstart party filed a third quarter return late yesterday showing $1,459,561.05 in contributions, versus $1,440,761.34 for its former “natural governing” competitor, a gap to the upside of $19K after falling $60K short of that objective in the second quarter…

A look at the Conservative Party’s fundraising record shows the long-term importance of building a base of small donors, as they have clearly been able to promote many small donors to larger donors over much of the intervening six years or so. But that party showed a bit of retrenchment in Q3 of 2012 as compared with recent non-election third quarters, posting the lowest number since 2007 ($3.42M vs $3.15M), though notably that was also the year just following a successful election campaign. And you can’t really ever call it a bad quarter when you continue to raise as much as your competitors combined!

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