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Senate Candidates Announce Campaign Cash
Produced by Sam Hudzik on Monday, October 05, 2009

David Hoffman announcing Senate campaign last month. (WBEZ/Sam Hudzik)

Candidates for U.S. Senate in Illinois are raising big money as they prepare for the 2010 election. A few of the campaigns are releasing some early numbers.

BLOG: An updated look at that long list of candidates

The news only confirms what we already knew: the fight over President Barack Obama's old Senate seat is going to be an expensive one.

Republican Congressman Mark Kirk reports he raised more than a million-and-a-half dollars between July and September, and now has $2.3-million in the bank.

Meanwhile, Democrat David Hoffman reports he raised a touch over $400,000 during the same time period, although his campaign only began in late August when he quit his job as Chicago's inspector general. Hoffman also loaned the campaign an additional half-a-million dollars in personal money. A Hoffman spokesman says only about $50,000 of that has been spent so far.

UPDATES

* A spokeswoman for Democratic candidate Jacob Meister, an attorney, estimates the campaign took in $1,057,000 in the third quarter. All but about $27,000 of that was loaned by Meister to the campaign. The spokeswoman notes the campaign has only been actively fundraising the past few weeks, and has only spent between $20,000 and $30,000.

* The campaign of state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias reports Tuesday it raised $1.1-million in the third quarter, none of it from Giannoulias himself. That leaves the Democratic candidate with roughly $2.4-million in the bank.

Other Senate candidates have not yet released fundraising numbers from this past quarter. They aren't due to the Federal Election Commission until September 15th.