Jacob Ogles
More than $750,000 was spent over two weeks by Republican Senate candidate Tom Leek and campaign committees under his control. But a group financed by trial attorneys burned through more than $1 million smearing him.
The Truth Matters, a political committee that for months attacked Leek while occasionally promoting opponent David Shoar, plunked down another $1.2 million in spending between Aug. 3 and 15. The bulk of that, more than $1 million, went toward TV advertising.
The massive fundraising comes ahead of a Senate District 7 Republican Primary between Leek, a sitting state Representative, Shoar, a former St. Johns Sheriff, and Gerry James, a retired professional wrestler.
The biggest spenders in the campaign, though, haven’t been the candidates but political committees supporting that.
The Truth Matters over a two-week time frame raised more than $2.4 million, all donated by a separate committee called Floridians for Accountability, Freedom and Opportunity. That committee raised the vast majority of its donations over the same two weeks from law firms across the state, along with scattered heath care industry donors.
In addition to funding the Truth campaign, the Floridians for Accountability committee also gave more than $2 million to the Conservative Veterans Alliance, a committee associated with Shoar.
Through Aug. 15, the Conservative Veterans Alliance had spent upward of $3.1 million on Shoar’s behalf, while The Truth Matters cleared $5.3 million in total spending.
Incidentally, Shoar’s official campaign account spent a fraction of that, less than $32,000 from the time he filed in June until the last reporting period before the election closed. In the last two weeks of the campaign, Shoar only bothered to spend about $70 in check processing fees, letting the political committees do all the heavy lifting for his campaign.
By comparison, Leek’s official campaign has spent well over $625,000 over the course of the campaign, including nearly $58,000 of that in the past two weeks alone.
He also has political committees helping as well. The Friends of Tom Leek committee formed after he filed for Senate has spent more than $1.7 million over the course of the race.
About $300,000 of that was spent in the last two weeks, though some $250,000 of that went directly to the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, the political arm of Senate Republicans, which endorsed him earlier this year.
The FRSCC has invested heavily in dulling Shoar’s momentum, including funding a recent ad reminding voters of a controversial investigation of the death of the girlfriend of a St. Johns Sheriff’s Deputy.
In addition to the Friends committee, Leek for years also has controlled the Living Life With Purpose political operation. Over the course of this election cycle, that group has spent nearly $5.2 million. That included more than $405,000 in spending just in the last two weeks, including directing $350,000 to the FRSCC.
James, without a committee to his name, has continued in his own campaign and spent more than $106,000. But that has trailed off in the weeks leading up to the election. The last four-figure expense he reported was on Aug. 1 for $3,000 worth of print and digital advertising.
The winner of the Republican Primary will advance to a General Election against Democrat George “T” Hill.
