Darcy Burner Continues to Out-Raise Dave Reichert

Photo of "Darcy Burner: Candidate for the 8th District" from Burner's Official Campaign Flickr Group

Thanks Daily Kos! For the second consecutive quarter, Darcy Burner, the Democratic challenger in the race for the 8th Congressional District, out-raised Republican incumbent Dave Reichert. In the second quarter of fundraising, Burner had raised $1.25 million for her campaign, to her challenger's $916,401.

Burner and Reichert have a history of heated contests. Their race for the same seat in 2006 was a nail-biter, with recounts and weeks passing before we all knew the winner. All told, Reichert ended up winning by just 7,000 votes. By every account, this year's rematch is turning out to be similarly intense. (We're certain we weren't the only ones who thought momentarily, Damn Dave Reichert burned her house down! This is some Russian mob-style election shit!)

Darcy Burner can thank (and Dave Reichert likely curses) progressive uber-blog Daily Kos for much of her fundraising success and support. Kos and community were an early supporter for Burner in the '06 election and have continued to support and publicize her candidacy and cause, even throughout non-election cycles. Burner, a former Microsoftie, is the epitome of a netroots candidate at the moment--embraced and supported by tech-savvy and politically active progressives all across the country. Heck, Daily Kos and their Orange to Blue project goes as far as to call Burner a "netroots hero".

To stay in the contest with Reichert, who the Republicans are throwing their "big guns" and big dollars behind, too, Burner must have a similarly strong third quarter of fundraising. She also must focus on cultivating local voter support and engagement and not just dollars from Kos-inspired progressives who can't cast a vote on election day.

Update: Thanks to Sandeep Kaushik (former Stranger writer and now Darcy Burner communications director) for sending me the exact numbers for this quarter's fundraising. The numbers we previously quoted were Burner and Reichert's total campaign earnings, while in this quarter alone Burner raised $585K to Reichert's $349K (before expenses). Burner has also out-raised Reichert for four consecutive quarters, including the two we mentioned during this year's campaigning.