Lots of high school and college students have trouble coming up with money for pizza, let alone a contribution to a political campaign.
But the three children of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Susan Bysiewicz--Ava Bysiewicz Donaldson, a college student; Lenya Donaldson, who just graduated from high school and Tristan Donaldson, who is still in high school--each kicked in $2,500 this quarter. That brings the total contributions of the Bysiewicz children to $7,500 per child, according to her campaign's latest finance report.
"They came to us and said they wanted to help their mom out,'' Bysiewicz Campaign Manager Jonathan Ducote said this afternoon. "They did it out of their own free will."
It's not the first time a candidate's minor child has donated a big sum to a parents' political campaign: Claire Blumenthal wrote a check to her father, Richard Blumenthal's, campaign last year.
Bysiewicz raised a total of $426,990 in the 2nd quarter of 2011. Her total since joining the race in January is $929,591. Of that, her campaign has a little over $720,000 on hand, according to campaign finance reports on file with the Federal Election Commission.
Bysiewicz raised less this quarter than her two Democratic U.S. Senate opponents, state Sen. William Tong and U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy. "From our perspective, Connecticut is a state where it's not about having the most money,'' Ducote said. "It's about having enough to communicate...and we're clearly on a path to do that.''
Tong entered the race in early May. He raised $565,572 in the 2nd quarter. "We're proud of all our support. 96% of our contributions came from individual donors and we went toe-to-toe with our opponents,'' said Tong campaign manager Marc Bradley.
A significant percentage of his donors came from out-of-state. "People all across the country are watching this race and William is humbled and grateful to everyone who stood with him in these early days of our campaign,'' Bradley said.
Meanwhile, the top fundraiser again this quarter was Murphy, a three-term congressman looking to make the move to the upper chamber. Murphy raised $899,957 in the 2nd quarter. About $127,000 came from political action committees. The Murphy campaign has $1,609,876.32 on hand, according to its financial disclosure form.
Campaign Manager Kenny Curran noted that Murphy had more than 2,600 individual contributors and appeared the best poised to take on multi-millionaire Linda McMahon, a likely GOP contender.
"We're building a real grassroots team that speaks volumes about the strength of our campain moving forward,'' Curran said.
