With all of the finger-pointing in New York’s 20th District Congressional race going on right now over the Republican challenger Chris Gibson possibly misrepresenting his campaign account, we heard from a local ad network source that whatever the case, he likely doesn’t have nearly the dollars to spend as incumbent Democrat Scott Murphy.
“Scott Murphy is out spending his rival Gibson 3 to 1,” we heard. “Murphy has bought all his ads through the election & was up on TV 10 days before Gibson with two spots. Gibson has just bought two weeks that started this Thursday (9/9). Either Gibson has a small pocketbook or feels the Republicans can win without a big push.”
Gibson’s first ad introduces himself to district voters (a large swath of Eastern NY) in his battle against incumbent Democratic Rep. Scott Murphy. The spot highlights Gibson’s 24-career in the military, including service in Kosovo, Iraq and Haiti. The 20th district is L shaped and starts in Glens Fall down the Hudson, Saratoga and into the Upper Hudson Valley, then then a shot west that covers the Catskill State Park.
“Chris’ ad truly reflects the leadership he is prepared to bring to Congress. He has served his country honorably because he believes in what this country stands for and is ready to continue to fight for us as an elected representative. Chris Gibson is a true fiscal conservative and having served in combat protecting our freedoms, is more than ready to stand up for us in Washington,” Gibson Campaign Manager Patrick Ziegler told the NY Daily News’ Celeste Katz. “Chris will not cave into political pressures by leaders because he’s faced even worse fire. We want to be sure the 20th District voters who have not yet had the opportunity to meet him know just how dedicated he is to fighting to stop the out-of-control spending Washington has engaged in with our money.”
Said Katz: “When last I checked, Murphy — who won the seat after Gov. Paterson elevated Kirsten Gillibrand to the U.S. Senate — had a significant cash advantage over Gibson.”
Well, she isn’t kidding, if ad spend-to-date in that district is any indicator.
Meanwhile, Democrats demanded that Gibson provide bank statements showing how much cash he had in his campaign account on July 9, 2010, after the GOP congressional candidate was “caught repeatedly misrepresenting his fundraising position to the press.”
From a recent press release from the NYS Democratic Committee: “On July 9, Gibson claimed his July filing would show $504,000 in cash on hand (Politico, 7/12/10). This was squarely contradicted by his actual fundraising report, which revealed he had more than $50,000 less than that (2nd Quarter Filing, click). Gibson then changed his story, saying that the number referred to cash on hand as of July 9 (Politico, 7/14/10).
Yet his August 26 filing debunked this claim too (Pre-Primary Filing); when donations in the report were offset by expenditures, the cash on hand tally for July 9th was actually about $414,000 — $90,000 less than he claimed. When confronted, Gibson changed his tune again, saying that $504,000 referred to money in the bank as of July 9, which wouldn’t reflect expenditures not yet debited (Post-Star, 9/6/10). The only problem: even if none of the $55,000 in checks that went out the door between July 1 and July 9 had been cashed, it still wouldn’t explain the discrepancy.”
See Gibson’s new ad:
