David Vitter's $4.5M spend in last 20 days still leaves him top dog in governor's race

U.S. Sen. David Vitter's campaign and the Super PAC supporting him dumped $4.5 million into the race for governor during the last 20-day campaign finance period, an amount that dwarfs his opponents' spending.

Even with that spending, between the Super PAC and Vitter's campaign, the Republican candidate will head into the last 10 days of the primary with $3 million. That amount will allow Vitter flexibility in spending both in the final days of the primary, and possibly the general election, while his opponents will feel pressure to replace money they've spent to combat Vitter's huge ad buy.

While Vitter has long been the fundraising leader in this year's governor's race, it is unusual to see so much money poured into the race in such a short amount of time. But Vitter's campaign and his Fund for Louisiana's Future Super PAC has also been taking aim at two candidates at once -- Republican candidates Scott Angelle and Jay Dardenne -- with attack ads while also running his own issue and biographical ads.

Here's an idea of how much Vitter outspent his opponents during the last 20 days, covering the period between Sept. 15 and Oct. 4. Candidates are required to report their campaign finance data 10 days before the election, so the timing of the reports makes it a much shorter time period than the previous reports have shown.

Read more: http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/10/david_vitters_campaign_and_sup.html#incart_river_home