The Michigan Campaign Finance Network (MCFN) released a numbers showing that Michigan candidates have raised a total of $117 million to pay for their campaigns. According to the MCFN’s research, incumbents have a significant monetary advantage over their challengers with the major exception being the gubernatorial race where Republican Dick DeVos raised $41.5 million (including $34.7 of his own money) compared with Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm’s $15.1 million. Republican incumbents in other statewide posts have raised significantly more than their challengers, with incumbent Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land raising $1.2 million compared to Carmella Sabaugh’s $163,00 and Attorney General Mike Cox raising $1.9 million compared to Amos Williams’ $703,000. In the Michigan House race, 110 Democrats raised $5,282,820 compared to 105 Republicans raising $6,527,844. In the 75th District that covers portions of Grand Rapids, Republican Tim Doyle raised $224,887 compared with Democrat Robert Dean’s $59,741 (Libertarian Lauren Hilmer filed a waiver). In the 76th District, Democrat Michael Sak raised $89,183 compared to the $2,868 raised by his Republican challenger Ted Liberski (Libertarian Matthew Frair filed a waiver). In the Michigan Senate race, 38 Democrats have raised $5,236,778 compared to the Republicans $7,721,975. Fundraising in Senate districts covering portions of Grand Rapids were heavily skewed towards Republicans, with Republican Bill Hardiman raising $379,356 compared with Democrat David LaGrand’s $116,679 in the 29th Senate District (Libertarian candidate Bill Gelineau raised $2,484) and Republican Mark Jansen raising $196,920 compared with Democrat Albert Abbasee’s $9,132 in the 28th Senate district (Libertarian Jamie Lewis filed a waiver). Waiver’s filed in these races indicated that candidates did not intend to raise more than $1,000 and with few exceptions, most minor party candidates filed such waivers.

For national House of Representatives and Senatorial races, a total of almost $30 million has been raised with incumbents holding significant financial advantages in all races. In the 3rd United States Congressional District, incumbent Republican Vern Ehlers has raised $434,914 compared to Democratic Party candidate James Rinck’s $22,707 (the Libertarian Party and Green Party candidates both filed waivers). The closest of the fundraising came in the congressional races was in the 8th District where incumbent Republican Mike Rodgers raised $1,434,00 and Democratic Party challenger Jim Marcinkowski raised $474,000. In the Senate race, Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow raised $8,835,000 compared to Republican Michael Bouchard’s $5,128,000.