Chief justice race latecomer Bob Vance attracting money, running ads but needs more to beat Roy Moore (Updated)

The Democratic money started to pour into Bob Vance Jr.’s campaign for Alabama Chief Justice this week, with the state teacher’s union political action committee A-VOTE giving him $50,000 and the State Democratic Executive Committee contributing $10,000.

That money represents about 40 percent of the roughly $152,000 Vance’s campaign took during the latest weekly campaign finance reporting period, according to Vance’s latest disclosure report, filed Thursday evening.

But Vance also received substantial donations from political action committees funded by traditional backers of Republican court candidates, including Protective Life Insurance Corp.

The weekly disclosure for former chief justice Roy Moore, who was booted from office in 2003 for refusing to follow a federal judge’s order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building, had not been posted on the Alabama Secretary of State Web site by noon Friday. I will update when his report is available.

UPDATE: Moore took in less than $6,700 in cash donations the week ending Oct. 26 and spent roughly $560. Since the primary, he has received about $380,000 total in cash donations and a $50,00 loan from a supporter. He has spent about $385,000 since the primary.

Daily campaign finance disclosures start Monday, Oct. 29, and will continue through the Nov. 6 general election. The chief justice race between Moore and Vance is the only one of five Alabama Supreme Court seats that will be contested. The nine-member state high court currently is all-Republican.

Vance became the Democratic candidate Aug. 20 after the state party booted Harry Lyon from the ticket earlier that month. Lyon was considered a fringe candidate, but he was the only person to qualify in January as a Democrat for any of the 11 appellate court seats on the 2012 ballot, including three each on the lower civil and criminal appeals courts.

Vance’s campaign says its polling shows him in a dead-heat with Moore, for what that’s worth. The conservative state political blog Yellow Hammer Politics has referred to an ALFA poll that it says shows Moore with a substantial lead and Vance with paltry name recognition among likely voters.

Both candidates hit the airwaves in October, with Vance spending more than $750,000 on television aids that aired 1,261 times in total through Monday, according to campaign disclosures and the Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks campaign ads and spending in judicial elections nationwide.

Vance spent nearly $96,000 on TV advertising this week, according to his disclosure. But after ending Thursday with less than $84,000 in the bank, Vance faces a quick deadline to raise six figures fast so he can mount what could be a crucial media blitzkrieg in the days leading to the election.

Moore launched an ad campaign on Oct. 19, according to the Brennan Center’s “Buying Time -- 2012” report. His campaign reported spending $250,000 on advertising in mid-October, disclosures show.

Vance’s campaign finance disclosures filed this week show he continues to attract a decent level of donations. He’s also getting money from sources that typically back Republican court hopefuls, but don’t consider Moore to be sympathetic to their pro-business interests.

Some of that money has come directly to Vance, mostly from lawyers and law firms that represent businesses and corporations. Some of the normally Republican money is coming indirectly, through PACs.

The Mobile, Al, corporate-defense firm Ambrecht Jackson, for example, sent $4,000 to Vance through SEA PAC, disclosures show. Mainstream PAC made two donations totaling $5,000 to Vance this month; the only contributor to the PAC since the primary has been Protective Life, another frequent donor to Republican judicial candidates. Biz PAC gave Vance $5,000 during a period in which the PAC received money from Protective Life and lawyers with the corporate defense firm Balch & Bingham.

Builders, construction companies, Realtors, nursing homes, an insurance agent group – all traditional mainstream Republican backers -- have given to Vance since he launched his campaign on Aug. 20.

The Oct. 19 disclosure showed Moore’s campaign needed a loan and money from two other backers to stay afloat after that quarter-million-dollar media buy mid-month. Mostly, he has gotten donations of $5-$250 from people living in every state in the continental U.S., plus bigger donations from a former Constitution Party presidential candidate, and a few businessmen from Alabama and Georgia and a handful of other supporters inside and outside Alabama.