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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Eye On Boise

Keough raises $77K for re-election campaign; opponent raises $17K, including $10,500 of his own money

Sen. Shawn Keough’s campaign finance report is a whopping 31 pages long, showing that she’s raised $76,931 in campaign contributions since Jan. 1 for her re-election bid. Keough, R-Sandpoint, is a 10-term senator and co-chair of the Legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, who is being challenged in the GOP primary by Glenn Rohrer of Priest River, and also targeted by the Idaho Freedom Foundation and by an anonymous “retireshawnkeough.com” website.

Keough received contributions from a wide array of businesses, PACs, lobbyists and other lawmakers, while also collecting nearly 100 donations from individuals or couples in her district and 16 from businesses in her district. Her largest donors, giving the maximum of $1,000, included Stimson Lumber, J.R. Simplot Corp, Ron and Heidi Stanley of Spokane, Selkirk Hardware Inc. of Oldtown, OtterPAC, Senate Republican PAC of Idaho, Marc Brinkmeyer of Sandpoint, Serena Carlson of Deer Park, Wash., and many others. But most of her contributions were much smaller, in the $100 range.

Keough reported carrying over $18,424 from past years, and spending $40,248, with literature, printing, advertising and campaign events among her biggest expenses; she had $55,108 on hand at the close of the reporting period May 1.

Her opponent, Rohrer, reported raising $17,628 - $10,500 of that from his own money - spending $12,592, and closing the reporting period with $5,036 on hand and $478 in debt. Aside from himself, Rorher’s largest contributors were Betty Parnell of “The Bridge” in Sandpoint, $1,000; and Doug Paterson of Priest River, $375. He received smaller contributions from nine other individuals in the district. Rohrer reported spending most of his campaign funds on literature, postage, advertising and campaign management.



Betsy Z. Russell
Betsy Z. Russell joined The Spokesman-Review in 1991. She currently is a reporter in the Boise Bureau covering Idaho state government and politics, and other news from Idaho's state capital.

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