Year-end campaign filings show Republicans not only dominant at the ballot box, but in the bank, too.
The state Republican Party reported late last week that it ended the year with slightly less than $1.2 million in the bank after having spent $7.7 million during the 2010 campaign cycle.
The Democratic Party reported $135,367 on hand and a debt of $57,000. The Democratic Party reported spending $7.8 million, but much of the party's money came from the national Democratic Governors Association.
The spending didn't help the Democrats: Republican candidates won every statewide race. And the figures are somewhat misleading because many individual GOP candidates, such as U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, had far more to spend than their Democratic opponents.
Democratic former Gov. Roy Barnes spent about $8.9 million on his unsuccessful bid to regain the governor's mansion, while Republican Nathan Deal spent $8.3 million. Deal also got extensive help from the Republican Governors Association, which independently spent more than $5 million to help Deal by hammering Barnes in TV ads. The group is headed by Nick Ayers, who was a campaign staffer for Sonny Perdue when Perdue ousted Barnes in 2002.
The party reports followed the trend of much of the past decade: the state GOP raises more money and has more money in the bank most years.
In the final months of the year, among the biggest contributors to the GOP was the state Georgia House Trust, which donated $59,000.
For the Democrats, the big late-year donors were Robert Matthews of CW Matthews, the state's leading road builders, who gave $200,000 weeks before the election, and Columbus lawyer James Butler and his colleagues, who contributed at least $85,000 just before the election. Both are friends of Barnes.
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