Mayor Justin Bibb hit the summer campaign season with more than $680,000 on hand for his reelection bid. He raised almost $304,000 in the first six months of the year, according to an unaudited filing with the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.
The mayor’s campaign issued a news release at the end of July noting that 60% of his donors gave $100 or less.
“Our campaign reflects the way my administration is running the city: every voice matters,” Bibb said in the release. “Donations from grassroots supporters show we’re reaching people and making a difference in their lives.”
He also received bigger donations. The law firms Kohrman Jackson Krantz and Calfee, Halter & Griswold each gave $7,500 through their political action committees. Building trades unions wrote four-figure checks from more than a dozen political committees, too. The Cleveland Teachers Union gave $5,000, as did the Keycorp Advocates Fund, KeyBank’s PAC.
Bibb’s campaign spent more than $266,000 in the first six months of the year. More than $182,000 of that went to a variety of political consultants.
That includes $22,500 to the polling firm LJR Custom Strategies. Another $40,000 went to Young Independent Consultants, a company that specializes in collecting signatures to put candidates and issues on the ballot.
The mayor is still raising money. This month, he emailed supporters asking them to chip in so the campaign could meet an internal mid-month fundraising deadline.
