Deseret News | Provo Council race set fund-raising record

Provo Council race set fund-raising record

Turley's $48,000 smashed previous mark of $22,000

By Tad Walch
Deseret Morning News

Published: Saturday, Dec. 8, 2007 12:35 a.m. MST

E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + -

Page:
1
2
Next >

PROVO — Every time Coy Porter placed a campaign sign in a prime location, three or four Steve Turley signs soon popped up across the street.

The lesson was obvious. Porter was up against a money machine he couldn't match in a grass-roots bid to unseat the incumbent Provo City Councilman.

What Porter didn't know until Friday, a month after the election, was that Turley was burying him under such an avalanche of cash that it obliterated the previous record for spending on a Provo City Council race.

Turley spent $48,400 to win a second term, while Porter spent $10,700. Turley defeated Porter by 652 of the 13,704 votes cast.

"Oh, my gosh," Porter said Friday when told by the Deseret Morning News about Turley's final spending report. "You're kidding me. Wow. It's tough to compete with that kind of firepower."

The previous record was set two years ago when former mayor George Stewart won a seat on the council by spending $22,500.

"We obviously overshot," Turley said.

Early in the race, he said he expected to break Stewart's record because of a recent trend toward huge leaps in spending in Provo races. For example, when three of the seven council seats were up for election in 2005, the candidates spent nearly $70,000, seven times more than had been spent on the same three seats the last time they were contested.

Story continues below

"We felt like the trend was that to play in a citywide campaign you had to be prepared for a $30,000 price tag," Turley said. "We had a game plan. We were expecting this big-league contest. I was told by Melanie McCoard (a candidate in another race) that Coy was going to unleash four mailers right at the end. I was expecting this torrent of sewage coming my way."

Instead, it was Turley who unleashed a torrent of dollars. He spent $26,800 in the campaign's final week, more than Stewart spent in the entire previous record-setting campaign. He suggested that if all donations had to be reported within 24 hours, candidates would know better where they stood.

"At the end of the day," Turley said of Porter, "he didn't step into the big leagues, and we did."

Turley's huge financial advantage — he spent $6.75 per vote to Porter's $1.64 — was tempered by the fact that Porter tried to buck the trend. He spent less than what either finalist spent on the same seat in 2003. That year, Turley spent $17,000 and incumbent Stan Lockhart spent $11,600.

"It was never about trying to go out and solicit funds," said Porter, who disliked asking for money. "Instead, we worked on the message and went door to door."

He said he was naive about the effort it would take to run a citywide race and should have started going door to door earlier.

The two citywide seats on the Provo City Council are far more expensive than the five district seats because in a citywide race there are five times more voters to reach.