Jones Faces an Uphill Fundraising Battle in His Effort to Unseat Boxer

With six months to go before the November election, Senate candidate Bill Jones faces a daunting challenge in proving to fellow Republicans that he can unseat Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer -- a chicken-or-egg conundrum that could determine whether Jones can raise the $15 million or more that many analysts believe it will take to win.

Jones’ dilemma is that to attract money he must be perceived as a contender. And to be a contender he has to have money.

A Los Angeles Times poll conducted in April found Boxer with a comfortable 20-point lead among eligible voters and an overall 54% favorable rating: 82% among Democrats, 53% among independents and an anemic 24% among Republicans.

Jones was a relative stranger even among fellow Republicans, with 43% saying they didn’t know enough about the former two-term secretary of state to decide whether they liked him. He left office in 2002 because of term limits.

Jones, of Fresno, was even less-known among crucial independent voters, of whom 71% said they didn’t know enough to form an opinion.

That low profile has affected fundraising. Jones, who also spent 12 years in the state Assembly, emerged from the March primary holding his party’s nomination and a drained bank account after spending nearly all of the $1.4 million he had raised. At the end of March, Jones reported having $224,000 in the bank, but owed himself $200,000 -- meaning the campaign was essentially broke. Boxer, meanwhile, had about $6 million in the bank.

Both campaigns have been raising money since then. Boxer campaign manager Rose Kapolczynski said the Democrat has collected $1.5 million in checks since March 31, including $125,000 at an event last week in Los Angeles. The Jones camp said it could not provide a total for how much it had raised.

Both candidates must disclose fundraising totals for the quarter in federal filings due after the end of June.

The disparity in war chests could make it even harder for Jones to raise cash.

“Money begets money and poverty begets poverty,” said Jack Pitney, a political analyst at Claremont McKenna College and a former researcher for the Republican National Committee. “Regardless of the rosy public statements of state Republican officials, I doubt very many of them give him much of a chance.”

With Republicans facing better odds of retaining control of the U.S. Senate by winning races in other states, analysts say they don’t expect much national money to flow to Jones. Key, Pitney said, is that national Republican donors want to see their money win races, something done more cheaply in a place like Alaska, where campaigns cost less and the incumbent -- Lisa Murkowski, who was appointed to the seat by her father when he became governor -- is polling better.

“The Alaska Senate race involves a fraction of the number of voters and a fraction of the costs, yet an Alaska Senate seat counts just as much as a California Senate seat,” Pitney said. “If I were a major Republican donor, I would donate to Murkowski before Bill Jones.”

But some analysts warn against underestimating Boxer’s power to raise money -- for Jones.

“Among Republicans, Boxer is a poster child for liberal causes and that usually attracts outside money -- particularly if you spend the money on direct mail and get into her voting record a little bit,” said Jennifer Duffy. She tracks Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington, which lists Boxer’s seat as likely to remain Democratic. “But Jones has to do it. And he does not have the reputation as the most disciplined fundraiser.”

Yet, where analysts see a tough road for Jones, Bruce Nestande, a top Jones strategist, sees opportunities waiting to be seized. Jones’ low profile? That’s a clean slate just waiting for the chalk. The near-empty bank account? It won’t stay that way, he insists. The money will come -- and so will the voters.

“Bill Jones has the opportunity to go out and define himself,” said Nestande, a former Orange County supervisor and longtime Republican strategist. “It’s better than being down 10 points and everybody knows you -- then you have no place to go.”

Still, Jones’ fundraising history doesn’t fuel much optimism.

He pulled in $4.2 million -- $384,000 of it his own money -- in his failed 2002 gubernatorial primary bid as rivals Bill Simon and Richard Riordan raised a combined $23 million, which included $5 million from Simon’s personal fortune. In 1998, Jones raised $1.5 million in his reelection bid for secretary of state.

Those campaigns, though, were conducted under state finance laws that allowed Jones to collect large contributions from fellow Central Valley agriculture businesses. In the governor’s race, for instance, Jones raised about $700,000 from just five businesses or organizations based in the Fresno area.

Under U.S. Senate finance rules, donations are limited to $2,000 per person for the primary, and another $2,000 for the general election. Just to catch up with Boxer, Jones would need to raise the maximum amount from 3,000 individual donors. That takes contacts, and Republican insiders say Jones has yet to establish a presence among the party’s big money-raisers.

The recent hiring of finance director Anne Dunsmore -- a state veteran also heading up California fundraising for the Bush-Cheney campaign -- could get Jones that access, they say. But the campaign is heading into the summer season -- a notoriously slow time to raise money in advance of the two-month sprint to election day that begins with Labor Day weekend.

Jones still could receive more than $3 million from the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, although officials there probably won’t decide where to get involved for several months.

“We do think that is a race that has the potential to be competitive,” said committee spokesman Dan Allen. “The key thing for us from a national perspective is [that] the new campaign finance laws are going to limit our ability to impact races at levels we’ve been able to in the past.”

But with aggressive tactics by Jones, he said, there’s potential to draw contributions. “As we get later and later into the campaign cycle, there’s going to be more attention paid to California.”

First, though, Jones needs to show he’s a contender in the eyes of Californians.

“The senatorial committee in the past has looked for a lot of funds being raised prior to their coming in,” said Republican strategist Arnold Steinberg of Calabasas. “Bill Jones is going to have to surmount challenges. He’s going to have to demonstrate a motivation and commitment, and convince people he really wants this office.”