Last week, Michigan GOP Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra announced that he had raised nearly $700,000 in the first quarter of 2012. As The Huffington Post's Mike McAuliff noted, that amount was a drop from his previous quarter's haul of $983,085.
There was more bad news for Hoekstra on Tuesday, courtesy of a report by the Associated Press, which revealed that Hoekstra spent nearly as much as he raised:
Republican U.S. Senate candidates Pete Hoekstra and Clark Durant finished their first-quarter fundraising with about the same amount of cash on hand, but both are far behind Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow.
Hoekstra reported Tuesday raising $695,000 and spending $677,000. He has $1.54 million on hand.
Durant reported raising $558,000 and spending $234,000, leaving $1.51 million.
Stabenow raised more than $1.5 million from January through March and has about $7 million on hand.
The Michigan Democratic Party quickly put out a press release mocking Hoekstra.
"It looks like Pete Hoekstra is spending like a drunken sailor," said state Democratic chair Mark Brewer. "While I'm sure divisive Super Bowl ads are expensive to make, it's clear that if Hoekstra can't keep spending under control on his own campaign, there's no way he'll be able to deal with the struggling economy in Michigan or effectively advocate for middle class families."
Hoekstra's campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
Hoekstra's dip in fundraising came after he ran a controversial Super Bowl ad of an Asian woman speaking broken English. More recently, he ran into trouble by calling the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, aimed at improving women's pay, a "nuisance."