Cannon raising money faster

U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon has raised over 60 percent more money than his GOP challenger, Jason Chaffetz, since last month's Republican convention in preparation for their primary election on June 24, according to new disclosure forms.

Cannon is spending most of the campaign cash now, clearly taking Chaffetz's challenge seriously as the incumbent tries to win his seventh two-year term in Congress.

But Chaffetz, who almost eliminated Cannon in the May state convention, says he has enough money to run an "adequate" campaign before the primary, now just a week and a half away.

"I will be ultra-competitive. I will win this primary," Chaffetz said Thursday just before the pre-primary reporting deadline to the Federal Election Commission. Chaffetz has about $72,000 in cash to buy last-minute TV ads and pay for a direct-mail piece.

Cannon, who had a new mailer hit potential voters' doorsteps Thursday, has raised $675,000 over the last two years. Cannon survived the convention by a mere nine delegate votes and since then has raised nearly $130,000. But Cannon has only around $30,000 in cash.

"We have enough resources to do what we want to do" before the primary, said Ryan Frandsen, Cannon's campaign manager. "We are pretty pleased with our fundraising so far."

Chaffetz has raised slightly more than $78,500 since the Republican convention — bringing his total to $171,000 for his campaign so far.

"I'm most proud of being debt-free and having more than 400 individual contributors — many of them Utahns," said Chaffetz, the former chief of staff of GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

"Cannon has never been debt-free the whole time he's been in office. I refuse to borrow money and then ask lobbyists and other special interests to pay me back," said Chaffetz, who claims Cannon has been in office too long and is captured by the Washington, D.C., mind-set.

Chaffetz has given his campaign $9,995 this year but said it is a contribution and not a loan. He said he will not seek to be repaid through future contributions from others, especially from special interests.

Cannon, a millionaire from the days when he and his brother, Joe, (now the Deseret News' editor) bought and operated the old Geneva Steel mill in Utah County, lent his first 3rd District race around $1.5 million in 1996. In various re-elections since, Chris Cannon has lent his campaign more money. In 2006, he loaned his campaign nearly $140,000, FEC reports show.

But Cannon's latest filing shows he has not loaned his campaign any money this year.