Scott Powers
Republican state Rep. Rene Plasencia spent raised more than $23,000 during the week ending Oct. 19 and spent even more than that on his re-election bid in Florida House District 50.
The week was the biggest yet in Plasencia’s campaign for either contributions or expenditures and easily swamped the campaign finance activity of his Democratic challenger Pam Dirschka of Titusville, who hasn’t raised or spent anywhere near that much money through her entire campaign.
During the latest week of campaign finance activity posted Monday morning by the Florida Division of Elections, Plasencia raised $23,750 and spent $26,504. That brought his campaign total to nearly $250,000 raised and nearly $225,000 spent, much of it during a hotly-contested Republican primary that Plasencia wound up winning easily on Aug. 28. He’s got just under $24,000 left, even with his big week of fundraising.
Plasencia, of Orlando, and Dirschka are battling for HD 50, which covers parts of east Orange and northwest Brevard counties.
She managed to raise only $169 during the week and reported spending only $12. To date, she’s raised $13,577, and spent $9,267, so she had about $4,000 left after Oct. 19.
Plasencia’s mid-October haul, less than three weeks out from Election Day, was buoyed by 19 maximum $1,000 checks from special interest groups, mostly in the health care industry. About $1,750 of his donations came from individuals.
The spending was almost all through Millennium Consulting, his general campaign consultant.
