27th Senate Race

The fundrace reports are out, and the 27th is heating up fast. In the battle to unseat Russ Potts (if he runs again) there is a ton of money already in the coffers of the candidates.

Mark Tate has raised $260,746 and still has $247,046 of that on hand.
Jill Holtzman-Vogel has raised $323,115 and still has $194,080 on hand.
Russ Potts has raised $122,224 and has $20,594 on hand.

This is interesting because Holtzman-Vogel has long been assumed to end up commanding a huge fund advantage. She still may, as her father can always write a check to give whatever is necessary. She also has alot of RNC connections and VCAP.
I have heard Tate has some major backers as well, but its hard to say how hard they are willing to push the money.

Jill will be kicking her campaign off this week and Mark began his quest a couple weeks ago. There is still no word on whether Russ will run or not.

There appears to be no other major developments in this race other than one. Phil Griffin was a big supporter of Mark Tate and was probably going to be able to deliver a good amount of votes from at least Winchester city to Tate. With the current situation, it is unclear what role he will play if any in this race. My gut feeling is Phil is probably done with politics for awhile, so this may hurt Tate. To what extent, is anyone's guess.