Hurt leads GOP fundraising in race for 5th

Robert Hurt, a Republican state senator from Chatham, collected roughly $105,000 in campaign contributions during the first three months of 2010 as part of his bid to challenge U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Ivy, in this fall's mid-term election, Hurt's campaign said Thursday.

Hurt is one of seven Republicans running in a June 8 primary that will nominate Perriello's GOP opponent in November.

When it comes to fundraising, at least, Hurt seems to be at the forefront of the Republican field, according to interviews and campaign finance documents filed Thursday.

"We're very happy with the level of financial support we've received from over 700 donors," Hurt's campaign manager, Sean Harrison, said. "It speaks to the level of support we're seeing. People in the 5th District are concerned about the direction of our country ... They know Robert Hurt has the right principles to get our country back in the right direction."

Two candidates - Michael McPadden, an airline pilot from North Garden, and Ron Ferrin, a businessman from Campbell County - had not filed a campaign finance report with the Federal Election Commission showing fundraising activity between Jan. 1 and March 31 by press time Thursday and could not be reached immediately for comment.

Of the other four Republican candidates in the race, however, none reported raising more than $32,000, according to interviews and FEC documents.

Perriello, a freshman Democrat from Ivy, announced on Sunday that his campaign raised upwards of $600,000 during the first quarter of 2010 and had around $1.4 million cash on hand. "Working and middle-class families of Virginia know that Congressman Perriello represents them, not the special interests," Anna Scholl, Perriello's finance director, said in the campaign's announcement.

The first three months of 2010 were Perriello's most successful fundraising quarter since he launched his political career in fall 2007 with a long shot challenge of six-term GOP incumbent Virgil H. Goode Jr. Perriello went on to win that race with a margin of just 727 votes.

"Perriello turned in a spectacular [fundraising] total," Isaac Wood, House race editor of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, wrote in an e-mail. "It is hard to gather a group of enthusiastic donors when you take more moderate positions, like Perriello has. In addition, his haul is made even more impressive by the fact that he sits in a district where only about half the people would be willing to support him. It is either slightly more or slightly less than half and I guess we will find out which in November."

Wood said that Hurt has the best name recognition of all the Republicans in the sizable 5th District, which stretches from the Charlottesville area down to Danville. The others, he said, will need copious amounts of campaign cash to keep competitive.

"The other candidates are all little-known throughout the expansive 5th District and that cannot change without serious campaign cash," he said. "If candidates do not have enough to spend on TV advertising, mailings and staff, they craft a treacherous path for themselves leading up to the primary. How can you win if nobody knows who you are, and how will voters learn who you are without an active, expensive campaign?"

Ivy resident and private real estate investor Laurence Verga, another of the race's GOP hopefuls, raised $31,123 during the first quarter of 2010, according to his campaign finance report. He had $181,393 left in his account as of March 31. His campaign coffers were buoyed by a total $226,570 worth of loans and contributions he funded out of his own pocket late last year.

Kenneth C. Boyd, a GOP member of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, collected $19,305 during the first three months of the year, his report showed.

"It's never as much as you'd like to get," Boyd said. "But [fundraising] has really taken off since we got certified and on the ballot. We're really enthused about the way things are going."

Many donors are waiting until a GOP nominee is chosen to challenge Perriello, Boyd said. "Once we have a nominee - and I believe that will be me - the money will really start to flow in," he said.

Jim McKelvey, a real estate developer from Moneta, brought in $13,750 worth of donations in the first quarter. Yet McKelvey has nearly $442,000 in his campaign account, thanks to a $500,000 loan he previously gave his campaign out of his own pocket.

Feda Kidd Morton, a biology teacher and GOP activist from Fluvanna County, said in an interview late last week that she raised roughly $30,000 during the first quarter of the year. Her report had not been posted by the FEC as of press time Thursday evening.