Fundraising for the state Gubernatorial race is approaching 17 million dollars, according to financial reports released last week.
Experts say spending has been trending upwards in gubernatorial races, despite some anomalies.
Craig Mauger is with the Michigan Campaign Finance Network. He says four Democratic candidates have raised nearly $11 million while eight Republicans have raised roughly $6 million.
“These candidates for governor have combined to raise 17 million dollars so far. That’s a large sum of money and there are a lot of candidates running so it’s pushing it up.”
Mauger said it’s difficult to compare elections, but the trend is clearly towards more money in state races.
“There are years where each race is different, in 2010 when Rick Snyder was running for his first term he put a bunch of his own money into the race so he had a lot more money at that point than some of the other candidates for Governor this year.”
In 2010 Governor Snyder spent roughly $11 million, six million of which came from his own pocket.
Mauger said other anomalies include when Governor Granholm ran in 2006 and was able to raise roughly 16 million as an incumbent.
But, he said, current candidate Gretchen Whitmer has already raised more than Granholm’s 2002 run.
At this time in 2010, Mauger said candidates had raised roughly 7 million dollars.