County Commissioner Josh Parsons (R) sat on $57,000 in campaign cash before surprise state Senate loss

Josh Parsons could have spent another $57,000 on the March 25 special election for a Senate seat in northern Lancaster County — a race he was expected to win easily but lost narrowly.

Two weeks before the election date, Parsons had more than $150,000 in his war chest, according to his political action committee’s latest campaign finance reports. By April 4, he had spent just under $93,000, largely on digital media through the Harrisburg-based Republican consulting firm Quantum Communications and on contributions to state GOP and Senate PACs.

Yet $57,682 remained unused in Parsons’ campaign coffers after Democrat James Malone’s historic upset victory, which made headlines nationwide amid a wave of Democratic victories in special elections throughout the beginning months of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Asked about the money he left unspent, Parsons echoed previous comments that his campaign made spending decisions based on “data and information we had at the time,” including a poll that erroneously predicted he’d win the race by 15 percentage points — the same margin Trump won the district by in November.



https://lancasteronline.com/news/politics/county-commissioner-josh-parsons-sat-on-57-000-in-campaign-cash-before-surprise-state-senate/article_5453218c-8894-4a75-899d-3cd92f2aecf4.html