President to attend Seattle fundraisers
Campaign stop is part of four-state swing through West for Obama
President Barack Obama is scheduled to stop in Seattle next week, the third time in seven months he will visit the state’s largest city to raise money.
His re-election campaign hasn’t released many details of the trip yet. It’s a stop with two campaign fundraisers at the end of a Western swing that includes Nevada, California and Portland. He then heads for New Orleans.
If the pattern of previous trips holds, he can expect to rake in more than $1 million from one campaign event, with tickets going for just less than $18,000, and hundreds of thousands more at a more modestly priced event.
Washington is the seventh-best state for Obama when it comes to raising money. For the 2012 presidential election cycle, reports filed with the Federal Elections Commission show he’s raised slightly less than $5 million from donors reporting Washington state ZIP codes.
Donations from Seattle-area ZIP codes have provided three-fourths of the money Obama has raised in the state for his re-election, or about $3.8 million since early 2011, according to FEC records.
By comparison, donations reported from Spokane-area ZIP codes during the same period total just under $93,000. Obama has never visited the Lilac City as a candidate or as president, although his wife, Michelle, made a stop at the Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox before the 2008 precinct caucuses.
Obama’s Washington fundraising total doesn’t include all of the money he raises in his Seattle-area stops.
On May 10 and Feb. 15 of this year, and Sept. 25 last year, Obama held high-priced events in suburban Seattle for fewer than 100 people, with tickets that cost $17,900 each. That’s more than the campaign can keep from a single donor, so the proceeds are split with another political entity, such as the national Democratic Party.
Those three events collected more than $3.5 million, according to figures released by the campaign at the time. Obama also visited Seattle in Aug. 18, 2010, to campaign for the re-election of Sen. Patty Murray at a similarly priced event; it raised $1.3 million that was split between Murray and the state Democratic Party.
Along with the high-priced fundraisers, Obama usually also holds an event with a larger crowd and a lower ticket price. At a concert and speech at Seattle’s Paramount Theater in May, tickets went for $1,000.