The benjamins, it is all about them

Alice Funke reviews the second quarter returns, including the competitive race for second place.

At some $3.74M year-to-date the NDP has raised nearly as much by the end of June as it usually raises in an entire non-election year. For example, this amounts to 86% of the party’s best ever non-election year haul of 2010 (then $4.38M). These two developments combined raise the spectre that the NDP might surpass the Liberals in fundraising by the end of December. The Liberals, meanwhile, are succeeding in increasing their numbers of small donors. And while the NDP is also demonstrating some real progress in increasing its number of overall donors over previous non-election years, the Liberals have been able to move and stay ahead of them on that score…

Now, part of what’s allowing the NDP to compete with the Liberals are some significant bequests, and they got another one in the second quarter of 2012 — just over $296K from the estate of a William Giesbrecht of Coquitlam, BC, along with another bequest of some $23K from Anne Murray Powell of Toronto, ON. The estate of the late Jack Layton made a $50K bequest in December, 2011 and another $50K in March, 2012, though no further bequests from the party’s former leader were recorded this quarter.

While the New Democrats have held a polling advantage over the Liberals for more than a year now, they have not yet been able to translate that into a fundraising advantage. Of course, both still trail the Conservatives, but the NDP’s ability to get past the Liberals in this depart seems (feels?) like an important marker.