MINNEAPOLIS — Democrat Jim Graves is gearing up to unseat the Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, raising $100,000 for his already-announced 2014 run, after narrowly losing to the Tea Party-backed politician last year.
Graves, a wealthy hotel company executive, lost by just 4,600 votes, or 1.2 percentage points, and maintained a competitive campaign though with a fraction of Bachmann’s financial clout. The Tea Party Republican raised $14.9 million for her 2012 campaign, roughly five times that of her Democratic challenger.
Bachmann remains a popular candidate in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, a mostly conservative constituency covering rural areas northwest of the Minneapolis-St.Paul metropolitan region. Graves touted his fundraising total, but will have to increase efforts to keep pace with Bachmann, who has already raised $678,000 through the first quarter of the year — the third-highest of any House member.
Both candidates remain conscious of the influence fundraising plays in congressional campaigns. According to Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group, the candidate who raises the most money for his campaign will win office roughly 90 percent of the time. Despite his fundraising deficit, Graves remained optimistic in his most recent public statement:
“Minnesota is clearly ready for an independent voice who has the business experience to bring both sides together to get deals done and create jobs. We’ve seen an outpouring of support from thousands who are ready for someone who will work for Minnesota.”
Playing to Graves’ favor is recent controversy surrounding Bachmann’s fundraising in 2012. Both the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Office of Congressional Ethics are currently looking into allegations that she paid an Iowa state senator to work for her presidential campaign, which would violate of the legislature’s rules.
Bachmann maintains that everyone involved in the alleged misconduct will be cleared of any wrongdoing.
The 57-year-old Bachmann was the source of controversy last year when she accused an aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of being connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, a religious political movement represented in several countries across the Middle East, including Egypt.
Bachmann and several other Republican legislators sent a series of letters to oversight agencies at five federal departments, citing “serious security concerns” about what Bachmann called a “deep penetration in the halls of our United States government” by the Muslim Brotherhood.
The allegations remain unproven, as Bachmann’s finger-pointing was vociferously denounced by Democrats and Republicans alike.
“When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said.