With the future makeup of Vermont’s Washington delegation unclear, regular campaign finance reports show that contributions for two of the state’s members of Congress have slowed down since last quarter.
Vermont and D.C. politicos have been hypothesizing over U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy’s political future, with some believing he could retire instead of seeking reelection. His colleague from the House, U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, is often floated as a potential successor in the Senate.
But campaign contributions to both slowed down this quarter compared with last quarter.
Leahy has yet to announce his 2022 plans, citing a tradition to announce a run about one year before Election Day. If he retired, Vermont would have an open seat in Congress for the first time in 16 years.
Leahy, a 46-year Senate veteran, raised roughly $227,000 between July 1 and Sept. 30 of this year, according to his campaign’s third-quarter filing with the Federal Election Commission. In the prior quarter, the campaign raised nearly $430,000 between April 1 and June 30.
This quarter, Leahy’s campaign spent about $114,000. By Sept. 30, his campaign held roughly $2 million in cash-on-hand.
This quarter’s fundraising is even lower proportionally to the senator’s third-quarter report in 2015, the year before he last won reelection. Between July and September of 2015, Leahy raised more than $442,000 and finished the filing period with under $2.5 million cash-on-hand. That same quarter, his campaign spent about $195,000.
Notable among Leahy’s donors this quarter were the Amazon and Facebook PACs, which contributed $2,500 each to Leahy’s campaign. In total this year as of Sept. 30, Facebook has contributed $5,000 to Leahy’s campaign.
Welch, who would be up for reelection in the House in 2022, ended the third quarter of 2021 with nearly $2.2 million cash-on-hand. He raised nearly $65,000 between July 1 and Sept. 1 and in that same period spent nearly $57,000.
His fundraising, too, has slowed since last quarter, when he raised more than $129,000 from April to June.
Though he is not up for reelection until 2024, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders ended this quarter with far more cash-on-hand than either of his colleagues in the delegation: more than $8.7 million. And in 2021’s third quarter alone, the former presidential candidate raked in nearly $1.5 million in contributions. His campaign spent about $1 million this quarter.
Spokespeople for all three campaigns said they had no additional comments.
