Chris Cillizza dug into the finance report:
According to his post-election campaign finance report, Miller raised more than $3 million for the race, spending $2.2 million and ending the campaign with $980,000, as of Nov. 22.
Of the money Miller did spend, about $100,000 went toward repaying himself for loans he made during his GOP primary win over Murkowski. Following her primary defeat, Murkowski ran as a write-in candidate… In total, the report, which covers expenditures and disbursements from Oct. 14 through Nov. 22, shows Miller repaid himself more than $96,000 worth of loans made during his primary with Murkowski, including paying off more than half of that total before Election Day.
Miller’s
proportion of money
spent to money saved is actually higher than Christine O’Donnell’s – she stashed around 15 percent of what she made before the election, he stashed around 22 percent. And he actually had more certainty that the election would wind up in court. That does not explain why he started paying himself back from campaign funds before the election was over. That’s not usually how this works. The limit on money that candidates are allowed to be paid back from the campaign fund after the election, the only consideration that might make a candidate start reimbursing himself, is
$250,000
, and Miller wasn’t close to that.
