Overkill: Candidate Schor outspent Brown Clarke by over $200,000

Overkill: Candidate Schor outspent Brown Clarke by over $200,000

April 11, 2018

I realize that the election has been over since November, but the final campaign finance reports didn’t come in until early December. They show that new Lansing mayor Andy Schor spent a total of $285,578, over $200,000 more than Judi Brown Clarke. Here are the totals from the two candidates' 2017 campaign finance reports. Click on a reporting period to see the actual report.

Andy Schor
Reporting Period	Contributions	Expenditures	Ending Balance
2/22/2017-7/23/2017	*232,336.52	99,242.90	133,045.29
7/24/2017-8/28/2017	25,253.33	21,058.67	137,139.95
8/29/2017-10/22/2017	93,030.00	94,824.05	135,345.90
10/23/2017-11/27/2017	5,955.00	70,452.61	70,848.29
TOTAL:	356,574.85	285,578.23

*Includes $90,000 transferred from state representative campaign account.

Judi Brown Clarke
Reporting Period	Contributions	Expenditures	Ending Balance
10/21/2016-7/23/2017	49,231.00	33,012.64	16,218.36
7/24/2017-8/28/2017	1,225.00	15,793.68	1,649.68
8/29/2017-10/22/2017	23,815.00	12,158.78	14,130.90
10/23/2017-11/27/2017	5,900.00	20,030.90	0
TOTAL:	80,171.00	80,996.00

Here are the vote counts from the Ingham County Clerk's website:

This means Brown Clarke spent $16.96 per vote and Schor spent $23.02.

156 individuals and PACs contributed over $500 to the Schor campaign. Here they are in 3 sequences:

Amount
City
Employer

How does one spend $285,000 on a Lansing mayoral campaign? $160,000 was for "consulting." Here are the consulting expenditures in 2 sequences:

Date
Recipient

Two "consultants" ended up on the new mayor's staff. This is from the Lansing City Pulse's 11/7/2017 election issue:

I just don't understand the need for all that money. The City Pulse predicted a Schor win soon after Virg Bernero announced he wasn't running. Schor could have won easily with the $90,000 left over from his state representative campaign account. Is it to scare away future challengers by showing how much money he can raise?

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