The latest reports are in, and once again Congresswoman Elise Stefanik has outraised both of her opponents in the race for the 21st Congressional District.

The incumbent Republican Congresswoman, who was elevated to the House Republican Conference Chair last year, has leveraged her national profile into a massive fundraising operation that can only be seen from Congressional leadership.

In the last fiscal quarter of 2022, covering transactions from April 1 to June 30, Stefanik’s multiple fundraising entities, including E-PAC, her Congressional campaign, the Elise Victory Fund and other fundraising drives she has run for other candidates brought in over $3 million. The group has taken in over $15 million this election cycle, from individual donors, corporate PACs and other candidates.

With that funding, the Stefanik has gone on to donate over $2.4 million to the National Republican Congressional Committee, which works to get Republicans elected to House seats across the country.

“I’m incredibly humbled and thankful for the outpouring of support for my re-election campaign from grassroots patriots in the north country, upstate New York, and all across America,”Rep. Stefanik said in a press release announcing her fundraising totals. “Team Elise has never been in a stronger position to not only win our re-election but to help flip the House and flip the Governor’s mansion in Albany to save New York. I’m proud of the resources we’ve spent to support strong, America First fighters — a record number of GOP women, veterans, and diverse candidates — who will help take back our country this November.”

Stefanik’s campaign arm alone raised over $1.2 million in total in the last three months, and has taken in over $7.46 million since the last election cycle ended in Nov. 2020.

Rep. Stefanik’s campaign had about $3.3 million available in cash as of June 30, after spending $726,820 in last quarter on campaign operations, consulting, travel around upstate New York and campaign contributions to other candidates and local political organizations. The Stefanik campaign gave $28,000 to candidates in various Congressional races around the country, $500 to the Herkimer County Republican Committee, $1000 to the Saratoga County Republican Committee and $500 to a Schoharie County judge candidate.

It appears that Stefanik’s campaign has not spent any money on advertisements, instead focusing on petition circulation to appear on the ballot, election law compliance consultants, travel to events around the district and fundraising calls.

The second-best fundraiser in the last quarter was Matt Castelli, the former CIA officer and counterterrorism official who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 21st Congressional District. Castelli, who has wide support among the local Democratic establishment and has managed to secure an independent third-party line in the general election under the “Moderate Party,” brought in over $320,000 last quarter, bringing his election-cycle total to about $1.02 million. Almost all of that money came from individual donors, while $2,210 came from local Democratic Party committees and $2,500 came from Vote Vets, a PAC that supports Democratic candidates who are military veterans. Castelli, while he didn’t serve in the military, was an active CIA operative in Iraq and Afghanistan during the height of the War on Terror in the 2000s.

In a statement announcing his fundraising totals, Castelli said the latest information shows his campaign is running strong.

“The strength of our fundraising highlights our campaign’s growing momentum, including national buy-in to our efforts to defeat Stefanik’s extremism in November, and NY-21 voters’ strong desire for change,” he said.

Castelli’s campaign spent $169,909 last quarter. The campaign spent $6,500 on internal polling of the district, and has spent thousands on digital advertising consultants and social media advertising.

He ended the fiscal quarter with $586,865 in cash available on-hand.

Rounding out the pack is Matt Purorti, a Whitehall, Washington County native and corporate lawyer who declared his candidacy over a year ago. Putorti is also seeking the Democratic nomination for Congress in NY-21, and last quarter his campaign took in just over $160,000. In the time his campaign has been running, Putorti has brought in $823,398 in total.

All of that funding has come from individual donors, with no significant endorsements or political supporters behind his campaign.

Putorti said he is proud of his campaign’s strong grassroots support, and said his campaign fundraising record shows it.

“We have lots of supporters across the district, and we’ve raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, certainly more than enough to be competitive in this race,” he said.

It’s not possible to determine where all individual campaign donors reside, but documents that are available indicate a higher proportion of Putorti’s donations appear to come from voters within NY-21 than Castelli, who has a stronger national fundraising platform.

As for spending, Putorti’s campaign expenses are mostly consultant payments, campaign staff payroll and insurance, as well as campaign text messaging services and postage. Putorti’s campaign spent $107,298 last quarter, and ended the quarter with just under $300,000 in available cash.

ActBlue credit card fees. ActBlue, which is a digital fundraising platform for Democrats, charges a processing fee for every donation given to the candidate through its services. Putorti’s campaign paid over $5,700 for ActBlue fees last quarter, and also paid over $260 in bank fees to Bank of America.

As the Democratic primary, scheduled for Aug. 23 with early voting starting Aug. 13, comes closer, Castelli and Putorti are likely to ratchet up their fundraising efforts and their campaign outreach, and whoever wins that election will likely begin an even more significant fundraising effort as they directly oppose Stefanik.

Another round of financial reports will come due in October, less than a month before the general election on Nov. 8.