Gregoire leads Rossi in fundraising

OLYMPIA -- In her bid for re-election, Gov. Chris Gregoire has raised $4.6 million -- more than twice that of Republican challenger Dino Rossi.

Rossi has raised $2.2 million, according to campaign finance reports filed this week. But while Rossi trails in dollars taken in, he is quick to point out that he is spending less money, too.

Gregoire has spent $1.6 million, more than a third of what she has amassed. Rossi has spent $636,000.

And both sides already are predicting record spending for their rematch of 2004. The two candidates each spent more than $6 million in that election, which resulted in two recounts, a court challenge and a 133-vote margin of victory for Gregoire.

Gregoire has been spending money this time around on research, mailings and fundraising.

"We've been spending our time in the last six or eight months putting together the infrastructure for our campaign," said Kelly Evans, Gregoire's campaign manager. "The money we spent in January is significantly less than we spent in December, partly because we are not spending money to raise money."

Elected officials are prohibited from raising campaign money while the Legislature is in session. Rossi is not bound by the same restriction because he is not an officeholder.

"But it is a fact, in politics, it costs money to raise money," Evans said. "We have done some research, which includes opinion research, looking at voters."

The Gregoire campaign spent $14,000 on research last month after spending $104,000 on research and consulting in December.

Rossi said that spending shows one way that her style differs from his.

"She's done a lot of polling, trying to figure out what to say and how to say it" Rossi said. "We haven't done a single poll, we haven't paid a dime for any of that, because I actually know what I want to do and what I'm going to say and how I'm going to do it.

"We'll do some polling later on, but certainly not to that extent," he said.

Campaigns don't generally reveal details about polling and research, but Evans said their efforts included looking at how the electorate feels about issues and where those issues rank.

Gregoire is spending more money on fundraising because she relies more heavily on supporters who make smaller contributions, Evans said.

In contrast, "If you look at the number of large donors who go to Dino Rossi's campaign versus our campaign -- it's very different," she said.