Hutchison trails in fundraising

Excerpt from The Seattle Times politics blog

King County executive candidate Susan Hutchison set an ambitious fundraising goal in a message to supporters the morning after she won the Aug. 18 primary: The campaign "must raise $500,000 between now and September 30th."

She's going to have to step up her efforts to meet that goal. Since Aug. 10, her campaign has reported raising just a little over $32,000. Rival Dow Constantine in the same period raked in $102,000.

Hutchison, a former KIRO-TV news anchor who now runs the Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences, started the general-election campaign with more money in the bank. In her last preprimary financial summary to the state Public Disclosure Commission, she showed a $121,000 fund balance, while Constantine reported a $21,000 debt.

Overall, Constantine has raised more money and in-kind contributions — $474,847 to Hutchison's $350,454 — but he had to spend more in the primary to finish ahead of three fellow Democrats.

Constantine, chairman of the Metropolitan King County Council, has received 3,342 individual donations — some as small as $2 — while Hutchison has drawn 1,029, mostly in larger amounts.

KING-5's first post-primary poll shows the election to be a tossup, with 47 percent of those surveyed favoring Hutchison and 44 percent picking Constantine. The poll by SurveyUSA of 557 likely voters was conducted Sept. 1-3. The margin of error is 4.2 percentage points.