Forty percent of legislative candidates are beginning their primary fundraising with money left over from their previous campaigns. Fifty-nine of the 66 candidates with beginning balances or war chests are incumbents. The remaining seven candidates had money left over from a previous unsuccessful campaign. War chests make up 20% of total dollars available to legislative candidates. "These early dollars carried over from previous campaigns help scare off opponents and set the stage for additional fundraising," says Janice Thompson, Executive Director of the Money in Politics Research Action Project.
 
 
 

Legislative Fundraising Breakdown - War Chests, Current Fundraising, Aggregate Contribution Totals*
	House R Primaries	House D Primaries	Senate R Primaries	Senate D Primaries	All Legislative Primaries
War Chests	$384,732	$184,459	$66,178	$114,773	$750,142
1st report contribs	$1,065,803	$876,063	$378,900	$609,015	$2,929,781
1st report aggregate contrib totals	$1,450,535	$1,060,522	$445,078	$723,788	$3,679,923

* Data from Secretary of State Elections Division

Reviewing all the dollars available to legislative candidates indicates an increase in fundraising compared to 2000 aggregate contribution totals. Fundraising since the last election and the deadline for the first report is lower than that seen in 2000. "Current fundraising could be affected by the recession and competition for campaign dollars by the high profile Governor's race," says Janice Thompson. "But factoring in war chests changes the overall analysis and reveals the potential for 2002 fundraising to set a new record. War chests from previous races also make former candidates and incumbents more resistant to the recession and fundraising competition."

War chests are also a factor in competition analysis based on the aggregate contribution totals as summarized below.
 

Competition Analysis of Primary Races
Competitiveness	# of races	% of 150 Legislative Primaries
No Candidate - One Party didn't even field a primary candidate	19	13%
Unopposed	100	67%	73%
Drowned out	9	6%
Lopsided	10	7%
Struggle to keep up	6	4%
Equal opportunity	4	3%
Inadequate info - late filings	2	1%

Two-thirds of Oregon's primary races are one-candidate races where the unopposed politician can focus on raising money for the general election. In an additional 10 races the fundraising disparity is so great that the underdog opponent is likely to be "drowned out" and unable to get out a campaign message. So, combining unopposed and "drowned out" primary races is a better indication of overall lack of competitiveness. Using this measure, 73% or almost three-quarters of Oregon primaries may well already be over. "Why bother voting if there is only one candidate running or only one that the voter has heard anything about?" asks Janice Thompson of MiPRAP.

Ten primary races are "lopsided" in fundraising. In these races the underdog opponent has only 25 to 50% of the resources of the other candidate and voters are likely to hear much more from one candidate than the other.

Six primaries are at the "struggle to keep up" level of competition with fundraising levels within 50 to 75% of each other. Voters are likely to hear more from the top fundraising candidate but the other candidate has resources to get some level of a message out to the public.

Only 4 races, 3% of all legislative primaries, are "equal opportunity" contests where opponents are fundraising at roughly equivalent levels.

"Redistricting, voter registration patterns, and the overturning of term limits are all factors that influence primary competition. War chests are probably at a lower level than they would have been if some politicians hadn't spent down their war chests because they thought they were going to be term limited from running again. Nevertheless war chests are giving incumbents a big edge and contribute to a system that is hard for a new candidate to enter," summarizes Janice Thompson.

Financial competition analysis is based on the following:

Drowned out = money underdog has 0 to 25% of opponent's campaign contributions.

Lopsided = money underdog has 25-50% of opponent's campaign contributions.

Struggle to keep up = money underdog has 50-75% of opponent's campaign contributions.

Equal opportunity = money underdog has 75-100% of opponent's campaign contributions.