New financial reports reveal stark Haaland-Hull fundraising divide

Democrat gubernatorial nominee Deb Haaland outraised Republican Gregg Hull during New Mexico’s latest campaign-finance reporting period.

But a line-by-line review of the candidates’ actual reports shows a much more complicated picture than the topline numbers alone: Haaland is operating a heavily nationalized, high-volume fundraising and campaign apparatus, while Hull’s donor base is overwhelmingly rooted in New Mexico.

Haaland reported $3,430,730.61 in net monetary contributions between late June and Sept. 7, compared with $943,415.80 for Hull. She ended the period with roughly $3.43 million cash on hand, while Hull reported about $509,652. Haaland spent $2,280,527.51 during the same period; Hull spent $731,601.79. Those figures come directly from the candidates’ Sept. 14 First General Reports filed with the Secretary of State.

The Santa Fe New Mexican highlighted the fundraising disparity Monday.

Piñon Post went deeper — examining not only how much each campaign raised, but where the contributions came from and where the money went once it entered the campaign accounts.

The contrast is striking.

More than 61,000 Haaland contributions came from outside New Mexico

Haaland’s filing contains 74,634 positive contribution transactions, totaling about $3.44 million before refunds.

Of those, Piñon Post’s analysis found 61,312 came from addresses outside New Mexico, totaling approximately $2.05 million. Just 13,319 came from New Mexico addresses, totaling about $1.37 million. Three additional transactions totaling $23,400 could not be cleanly classified by state from the filing.

That means approximately 82.2% of Haaland’s positive contribution transactions came from outside New Mexico.

By dollars, out-of-state contributions accounted for about 59.6% of her gross positive contributions during the period.

The filing also contained 226 contribution refunds totaling roughly $11,116, bringing Haaland’s official net contribution total to the reported $3.43 million.

The geographic spread is extensive.

Haaland received positive contribution transactions from all 50 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and military-associated overseas addresses.

California alone accounted for 12,052 contribution transactions totaling more than $408,000. Texas produced another 3,654 transactions totaling roughly $218,000. Massachusetts contributed about $120,000, while New York and Washington each generated thousands of transactions.

The first few pages of Haaland’s 7,557-page filing illustrate the pattern: alongside Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe and other New Mexico donors are contributors from San Francisco, Chicago, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Oakland, New York City, Providence, Boulder, Seattle and dozens of other out-of-state communities.

This is not a new phenomenon. Haaland’s campaign has openly promoted its national small-dollar reach; in April it reported more than 314,000 individual donations and said over 96% of its online donations during that reporting period were under $100.

Then there’s Hull

Hull’s report is almost the geographic reverse.

Piñon Post counted 1,902 positive contribution transactions in his filing.

Of those, 1,859 — 97.7% — came from New Mexico addresses.

Those New Mexico contributions totaled $891,844.94, or approximately 94.5% of the money Hull raised during the reporting period.

Only 43 positive contribution transactions came from outside New Mexico, totaling $51,570.86.

Put another way: Haaland recorded more than 1,400 times as many out-of-state contribution transactions as Hull during the period and nearly 40 times as many out-of-state dollars.

Hull campaign spokesman Ryan Saylor told the Santa Fe New Mexican that “more than nine out of every ten dollars we raised came from New Mexicans, across 1,900 contributions, and over half of those gifts were $100 or less.”

The filing substantiates the central geographic claim.

Hull’s donor pages repeatedly identify New Mexico retirees, teachers, nurses, construction workers, sales representatives, truck drivers, small-business owners and ranchers from Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Farmington, Las Cruces, Alamogordo, Hobbs, Roswell, Carlsbad and smaller communities across the state.

His campaign made a similar argument following an earlier filing, saying 415 of 424 donations during that period came from New Mexicans.

The ActBlue footprint

Haaland’s expenditure report contains repeated payments to ActBlue Technical Services for credit-card processing.

Piñon Post calculated 14 ActBlue payments totaling $91,128.11 during the reporting period. Individual payments included $840.45, $2,617.02, $2,927.04, $5,783.49, $6,709.92 and, near the end of the period, an $8,628.55 payment on Sept. 7.

By comparison, Hull reported $16,465.34 in Anedot contribution-processing fees, along with a separate $41.03 WinRed expense.

There is an important distinction: Haaland’s individual contributor entries do not label every donation as having passed through ActBlue. The report therefore does not establish that all 74,634 positive transactions were ActBlue transactions.

What the filing does establish is the scale of the fundraising operation.

Haaland’s median positive contribution was approximately $12.50, and roughly 97% of her positive contribution transactions were $100 or less.

Hull’s median positive contribution was $100, while his filing contained a fraction of Haaland’s transaction volume.

Raising millions also costs millions

The spending reports add another dimension to the comparison.

Haaland spent $2.28 million during the period — more than three times Hull’s $731,602.

Her largest expenditure stream was not travel, campaign events or office supplies. It was the professional infrastructure needed to run a large national campaign.

Piñon Post’s vendor analysis found Haaland paid Washington, D.C.-based Sage Media Planning & Placement approximately $616,314.84, principally for advertising buys.

She also paid Washington-based MissionWired approximately $520,808.18 for digital fundraising.

Combined, those two firms accounted for approximately $1.137 million — essentially half of Haaland’s entire spending for the period.

MissionWired entries in the report are explicitly described as “Digital Fundraising,” including payments of $61,988 on July 10 and $50,000.24 on July 31.

The campaign also spent heavily on staffing and infrastructure. Piñon Post calculated approximately $300,049 in direct campaign-worker salaries, plus roughly $130,538 in payments to Payroll Data Processing, largely for payroll taxes and services.

Haaland also spent about $30,761 on Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance for campaign personnel. Her report shows a $13,974.74 health-insurance payment alone on June 30.

Then there is the technology and communications apparatus.

Haaland’s campaign reported approximately $67,014 to NGP VAN for campaign software, $54,783 to Message Digital for texting, and $50,477 to Switchboard for texting services.

Other notable expenditures included roughly $59,257 to McKenna Media for media production, $32,342 to Cat Eye Studios for direct-mail consulting, $27,000 to Washington-based GBAO for research, $24,096 to Elias Law Group for legal services, approximately $16,497 to Spiros Consulting for research and $16,144 to Strategies 360 for fundraising consulting. The report itself lists GBAO’s $27,000 expenditure as “Research Services” and documents multiple Elias Law Group and Cat Eye Studios payments.

More than $600,000 spent on two pieces of the fundraising machine

One comparison puts the scale into perspective.

Haaland spent approximately $520,808 on MissionWired’s digital fundraising operation and another $91,128 in ActBlue processing fees.

Combined: $611,936.29.

That is roughly 84% of everything Hull spent on his campaign during the entire reporting period.

And Haaland’s approximately $616,315 Sage Media bill alone was nearly as large as Hull’s entire $731,602 expenditure total.

Hull’s spending is smaller — and heavily aimed at advertising

Hull’s campaign is hardly devoid of professional consultants or out-of-state vendors.

His largest vendor was Virginia-based Peakland Strategies, which received approximately $312,715.38, or about 43% of Hull’s total spending.

The filing shows repeated Peakland payments for campaign consulting and television work, including a $67,424.68 consulting payment on July 21, a $22,652.69 consulting expenditure on Aug. 28 and a $100,000 television/cable airtime and production payment on Aug. 31.

Hull also spent $70,250 with Red Surge for television/cable airtime and production and $63,003.67 with Albuquerque-based Cumulus for radio airtime and production.

Another $18,000 went to Content Creators LLC for television/cable production.

Other significant Hull expenses included approximately $43,718 to Rio Rancho-based Rycor LLC for consulting, campaign materials and postage; $33,150 to Jose Orozco, primarily for consulting and reimbursements; roughly $22,787 to Perez & Assoc./Perez & Associates for fundraising consulting; approximately $19,525 to Manny Lardizabal for consulting and campaign-office expenses; and about $15,967 to Albuquerque-based Graphic Connections for campaign materials.

Hull’s filing also contains the sort of smaller travel and campaign expenses common in a statewide race — gas stations, parking, restaurants, hotels, flights and community-event fees — alongside those much larger advertising and consulting bills.

Two different campaign machines

Haaland emphasized the breadth of her coalition after filing the report.

“I know firsthand how hard people work to earn every paycheck, and I am deeply grateful for everyone who shares my vision for New Mexico,” she said, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Her campaign has previously touted raising more money from New Mexico than any other candidate in the race, while also emphasizing hundreds of thousands of contributions and a large national small-dollar network.

Hull, meanwhile, is raising significantly less money overall but has emphasized the in-state nature of his support. His campaign has described its fundraising model as building support “one donor at a time” among New Mexicans.

The filings show both campaigns rely on professional political consultants, advertising companies and technology vendors. They also show unmistakably different fundraising maps.

The raw headline is $3.43 million for Haaland versus $943,416 for Hull.

The deeper numbers are 61,312 out-of-state Haaland contribution transactions versus 43 for Hull; approximately $2.05 million in out-of-state Haaland contributions versus $51,571 for Hull; and a Haaland campaign spending more than $600,000 during the period on digital fundraising and ActBlue processing alone.

Hull’s campaign, meanwhile, derived more than 94 cents of every contribution dollar from New Mexico addresses, then directed a large portion of its substantially smaller budget toward television, radio and campaign consulting.

Those figures do not determine which candidate has broader voter support. Campaign donations are not votes.

But they do provide a detailed picture of two fundamentally different financial operations competing to elect New Mexico’s next governor.