I took a few minutes yesterday afternoon and this morning to look at the campaign spending report filed by Senator David Ige’s gubernatorial campaign that covers the first six months following the announcement that he would challenge Gov. Neil Abercrombie in the 2014 primary.

Looking at this report, and now with less than five months to go before the August 9 Primary Election, it looks like Ige’s campaign is sputtering, at best. Although early polls suggest Ige is getting a boost from voters signaling their unhappiness with the governor’s policies, it just doesn’t look like there’s much horsepower under the hood of the campaign.

Point #1. He hasn’t raised much money since he announced his entry into the race back in July 2013. He took in only $56,226 over the six month period ending on December 31, 2013, after holding two fundraising events during November.

Of that total, $9,849 came in the form of small donations of $100 or less, while contributors of more than $100 brought in $45,577. He closed the period with $76,508 in the bank.

The largest contribution received was for $3,000, well below the $6,000 maximum allowed for the statewide race.

Those are respectable numbers for a competitive state House race, only fair even for a hotly contested state Senate race. And they are nowhere near what will be needed to support a credible, contested, statewide campaign.

By comparison, during the same period, Sen. Clayton Hee received $1,050 in small donations and $91,800 in contributions over $100, and ended with a surplus of $440,619. Hee, who was reelected in 2012, is one of the senators facing an early reelection race in 2014 as a result of the most recent reapportionment.

Point #2. Looking back, Ige has never been a candidate who pulled in large monetary support. In the period beginning immediately after the 2006 election and July 2013, when he jumped into the governor’s race, Ige had raised brought in a total of just $110,834 in contributions over $100, or about $17,000 per calendar year. Enough to get reelected from his Aiea district. Not much of a fundraising track record for a gubernatorial bid.

Ige’s largest contributors during the years prior to his entry into the governor’s race, are shown below. These are totals which cover two campaign periods.

Anheuser Busch, $4,317
John Radcliffe, $5,817*
HMSA PAC, $3,000
Hawaii Realtors PAC, $2,550
Outrigger Enterprises $2,200
Hawaii Chamber PAC $2000
Plumbers and Pipefitters, $2,000
Rex Matsuno, $2,000
Island Insurance, $2,000
HGEA PAC, $2,000
American Resort Development, $2,000

The asterisk on John Racliffe’s total is to note that $4,000 of the total was attributed to the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly via Radcliffe, according to Ige’s report, while an additional $1,500 was from Radcliffe personally.

Point #3. A look at Ige’s reported campaign expenses for the gubernatorial campaign during the latter half of 2013 don’t indicate much campaign infrastructure. There are the typical early costs, designing a logo, getting a website established, buying stamps, some t-shirts, software for tracking voters and volunteers, cell phone charges (a single line), etc.

Most of the reported expenses are reimbursed to Ige himself for travel, fundraising costs, incidentals like food for campaign meetings, etc.

There was one reported trip to Washington, D.C. back in August 2013, for a “meeting with Crossroads,” apparently referring to Crossroads Campaign Solutions. According to the firm’s website, it provided campaign services during the 2010 elections to both Rep. Colleen Hanabusa and the late Sen. Dan Inouye.

In this case, though, there were no further payments to Crossroads during the reporting period. In fact, there were no campaign consultants paid, and no reported unpaid expenditures. There’s really little indication of a campaign actually ramping up for a competitive statewide race.

One interesting note. Honolulu attorney Keith K. Hiraoka is Ige’s campaign chairman, according to the campaign’s organizational report. Hiraoka is a named partner in the former law firm of Gov. Abercrombie’s attorney general, David M. Louie. Hiraoka does not appear to have contributed directly to any state or local political candidates since 2006, according to the Campaign Spending Commission database.