Jacob gave his campaign $413,000, according to his new report. He raised $459,000, and so he ended up funding 90 percent of his unsuccessful challenge to Cannon.

Cannon now faces Democrat Christian Burridge in the heavily Republican district. Burridge's report had not been filed by Friday night, the deadline not being until Saturday.

In Utah's 1st Congressional District, Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, also had not filed his report by Friday evening. His challenger, Democrat Steve Olsen had lent his campaign nearly $17,000. Including the loan he'd raised more than $20,000 and had $1,343 in cash on hand, Olsen's report shows.

National political pundits rank Hatch's seat as safe for Republicans, although Ashdown, a millionaire through his ownership of Internet provider XMission, promises to make a race of it come the November election.

Ashdown, a tech-savvy candidate who is using the Internet to campaign in a number of creative ways, recently said that he has not been as successful in fund raising on the Internet as he had hoped. Ashdown has raised $92,000, of which around $61,000 comes in loans from Ashdown himself, said Brett Garner, his campaign manager. Ashdown has only $12,800 in cash.

While incumbents like Hatch and Matheson get a lot of special interest political action committee monies (Hatch has $1.6 million in PAC contributions), Ashdown has no PAC contributions. Garner says Ashdown has not decided yet whether he'll even accept PAC contributions.

Hansen says Hatch fund-raised extra hard the past two years "because it is good to have it before you need it. And sometimes you don't know if you'll need it or not." Hansen went full-time for Hatch in September 2004, nearly two years ago, setting up a fund-raising juggernaut.

Hansen was preparing for a tough intraparty challenge, which ultimately didn't materialize. State House Majority Whip Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, announced last summer he would challenge Hatch. But Urquhart dropped out last fall. And while several other Republicans filed against Hatch, he easily dispatched them in the state GOP convention.

"We are about $1.5 million ahead of where (Hatch's) campaign has been in the past" re-election years, notes Hansen. "We were preparing for a tough convention (battle), even a primary," neither of which happened.

Some of the interesting Hatch expenditures:

His Senate campaign has "loaned" his failed 2000 U.S. presidential campaign $107,000. "The presidential campaign was in the hole that much. After this year's campaign, we'll hit it hard (in fund raising) to pay off that presidential debt," says Hansen.