38 & 37 Days Until the New Election-Baker Spending

Baker spent $46,273.26  during the reporting period ending July 15.  Almost exactly half of that, $23,083.10, went to a company called Winning Connections in Washington DC for phone calls.  That’s a lot of money.  On their web site, they don’t give prices, so we can only guesstimate.  Our research showed a range of costs, with $.12 per robocall seeming to be fairly representative, though there were plenty of services that were cheaper.

Assuming those were all robocalls at $.12 each, that would work out to 192,359 phone calls from Baker.  While it seems like we got about 100,000 between just us here at Cherokee Truth, that may be right.   Of course, some of those may have been live calls from actual people.  According to a Cherokee Phoenix report, those may cost less than a buck each.   

Even so, that’s at least 23,000 phone calls.  So somewhere between 23,000 and 192,359 phone calls paid for by Baker, on top of however many phone calls his campaign volunteers made.

Speaking of which, just like every other report, Baker doesn’t have a phone bill charged to his campaign.  He does have a campaign phone number, but apparently he doesn’t have to pay for it.  Again no reported costs for office supplies, office expenses, campaign office rent, utilities or travel.

He did spend more than three grand at Reasors for a Hog Fry and $4500 to the election commission for a recount.  Which, considering how badly they butchered it (losing a few hundred votes and costing both candidates a ton of legal fees trying to figure out their mistake), might be the biggest rip off of the campaign so far. 

The usual suspects showed up as labor costs--- roommates Johnathan Levy and Sean Nordwall (1200 N. Cedar) and furniture store dweller Lindi Conover, for a total of $8280.

Baker’s total expenditures for the July reporting period were $46,273.26.  He ended with a balance of $24,787.54.  He’s spent a total of $321,859.42 so far.