Hear from Minnick’s campaign

BOISE -- The national Democratic Party announced it will be spending $350,000 in campaign propaganda for congressional candidate Walt Minnick.

Campaigns for Walt Minnick and Bill Sali both say big issues are most important when it comes to this race, but clearly right now it's all about money.

"The money is not coming directly to us, they are going to be spending it on television apparently, but it was a surprise to us too, we didn't know it was coming," said John Foster, Minnick spokesperson.

And they won’t see it in their coffers either as the money goes directly to a media campaign based in Washington that will focus its efforts in Idaho.

Sali's team doesn’t think this is a race based on money raised.

"People don't decide races based on how much money has been raised or who has the best ads, they make decisions based on the issues," said Wayne Hoffman, Sali spokesperson.

Hoffman says his office hasn't heard if it will be getting money from the national Republican Party and says his candidate can't compete with the money Minnick has and will raise during the campaign process.

"Congressman Sali is not a wealthy man, he is your ordinary Idahoan like you and me and so he doesn't, he's not a millionaire who can write a check for a million dollars," said Hoffman.

This quarter Minnick wrote a personal check to his campaign for $50,000.

"Walt is proud of his success, he started out on a family farm and has worked very hard his whole life to achieve what he has and now he is ready to work with Idahoans to help solve some problems," said Foster.

Minnick's total cash on hand is more than $400,000.

Sali has about $250,000 but is $130,000 in debt.

It was on July 15th that the latest campaign contribution reports were to be filed with the Federal Elections Commission.

Bill Sali and Texas Democrat Al Green were the only two U.S. representatives who didn't file by the deadline.

"Frankly it is outrageous that he has not filed this report, the people of Idaho deserve to know who his campaign contributors are. And for him to think that he can get away from not filing his federally mandated financial disclosure to the American people and Idahoan is really outrageous," said Foster.

Sali's campaign doesn't think it's a big concern.

“We filed a form a form 99 I believe which indicated that we couldn't file on time.  The FEC had a problem with their software, they have fixed that problem and now we are uploading the data and so hopefully it will be filed soon,” said Hoffman.