Well, it’s time for an update on Andrea Murray’s finances.

The far-right-posing-as-a-moderate candidate for state Senate in Windsor County has finally caught up on her homework. She filed her October 1 campaign finance report and her September 1 report at the same time — on September 30. As Maxwell Smart would say, “Missed it by that much!”

The new numbers show more of the same: Spending a lot of her own money, raising very little outside her own household, and paying big money to an out-of-state political consultancy. But this time it’s a different consultancy.

That’s right, shortly before the primary, she apparently dropped the Las Vegas-based McShane LLC and started paying Illinois-based Cor Strategies. She also brought on board, as a paid consultant, a failed far-right candidate for local office. Good times.

First, let’s recap where we left off with Murray’s sad campaign. As of August 1, she had raised $13,772, including $9,462 from herself and her husband August. She’d managed to spend even more than that, largely because of $12,212 in billings by McShane, a consultancy with ties to the far right. Read my previous post for the gory details.

So now, finally, we have an updated look at Murray’s finances. As of October 1, she’d raised a seemingly respectable $31,910, but…

• That included $25,462 from herself and/or family. Impressive, for an alleged farmer.
• Her campaign is still in the red thanks to total expenditures of $32,145.

Murray has failed to attract significant support from beyond her own front door. She reports only 22 total contributors for her campaign to date. I don’t know if that includes herself and her husband, but either way it’s a pitifully small number.

She’s not picking up momentum either. Her October 1 filing includes only three non-family donors who gave more than $100: Eric Hennessy of Perkinsville ($104.10), William Davis of Woodstock ($500) and our dear friend Lenore Broughton, ultraconservative megadonor and serial backer of losing candidates ($900). Murray’s belatedly-filed September 1 report includes only ONE three-figure donor: George Robinson of Floral City, FL ($104.10). (May we assume that $4.10 is WinRed’s cut for processing $100 donations? Probably.)

Worth noting: the absence of donations from the Burlington-area business barons who’ve bankrolled Republican Senate candidates with a chance of winning. Presumably they’ve run the numbers on Murray and made a business decision. (By the way, they’re continuing to write scads of four-figure checks in an effort to kill the Dem/Prog Senate supermajority. More in an upcoming post.)

Anyway, if the Murray movement is gaining speed, it doesn’t show up in her campaign kitty.

On to expenditures. Sometime in early August, Murray switched from McShane to Cor Strategies, which claims to be “the largest center-right political company in Illinois” and a ““boutique, exclusive political company that exists to advance people and causes we believe in.”

By which they appear to mean people “who can write checks that clear.” Because Murray is not “center-right,” and is, in fact, far too conservative to compete in her district. She offers no reason to believe.

Cor Strategies is headed by “Founding Visionary” (ugh, I threw up in my mouth a little) Collin Corbett, whose headshot features smoldering eyes and a close-cropped red beard. (Watch out. ladies!) Since August 8, Murray has paid Cor Strategies a total of $11,855, the lion’s share going to online advertising, which is a sensible investment. Perhaps Murray has learned a lesson from McShane’s professionally-produced two-minute campaign video that’s only been viewed about 650 times. A complete waste of money.

Murray has also paid $1,000 for consultant services to Aaron Warner, a gent who ran for Hartford Selectboard last spring and came in a distant fourth. The two winners got 1,695 and 979 votes respectively. Warner got a mere 436, finishing far behind a candidate identified only as “Rocket,” who received 792 votes.

Warner is best known in his hometown for loudly complaining about the Pride flag and alleged “grooming” policies in the Hartford public schools.Elsewhere, Warner’s claim to fame is writing essays for the Vermont Daily Chronicle and its New Hampshire counterpart, Granite Grok. I didn’t do a deep dive on Warner’s oeuvre because I’m still recovering from reading Joe Gervais’ Substack, and four out of five doctors recommend strictly limiting your exposure to toxic conservatism. Let’s just say he’s more articulate than Gervais but plays in the same ideological ballpark.

Just so I’ve got this straight, the putative moderate Andrea Murray thinks Aaron Warner is going to help steer a course to electoral victory in deep-blue Windsor County. Riiiiight.

In sum, Andrea Murray continues to spend tens of thousands of her own money on a misguided campaign in a decidedly liberal district. I’m sure she will greet her inevitable loss with cries of election fraud, because that’s how she rolls.