2012 Election
Inslee and McKenna are Both Rich Guys
Two quick follow-ups to yesterday's side-by-side analysis of the Jay Inslee and Rob McKenna TV spots.
First, given that we're crediting Inslee's TV campaign with his meteoric rise in the polls, we wanted to see how much the blitz cost him (his first blitz, not the new spot—those numbers aren't available yet.)
Inslee spent $767,920 on statewide TV buys and nearly $1 million overall when you include the cost of production, which was headed up by Philadelphia firm Shorr Magnus Johnson.[pullquote]Either way, neither of these guys are 99 percenters. Inslee may be worth $1.5 million or higher. McKenna may be worth $1.2 million or higher.[/pullquote]
Second, given that the crux of our analysis was that Inslee played himself as blue-collar dude while McKenna played himself as a bourgeois nerd, we checked in on each candidate's net worth (mostly as a fact check on Inslee's proletariat pretenses).
These are rough estimates because financial disclosures only provide value ranges and both candidates have assets in the top range which are valued at "$100,000 or more" which means we know the minimum but not the maximum. (We were able to use Zillow to sharpen our estimates on their property values, though.)
Either way, neither of these guys are shopping at Ross Dress for the Less. Inslee may be worth $1.5 million or higher. And his congressional salary was around $180,000. Some of his stocks included Amazon, Costco, Sun Microsystems, and Starbucks.
McKenna may be worth $1.2 million or higher with a state salary of about $160,000. His investments are all in trusts, so there's no snapshot of the companies he's got stock in.