Coats gives $200K loan for Senate campaign
Tom DaviesFormer Republican Sen. Dan Coats' campaign for his old Senate seat is running in large part on his own money after he gave it a $200,000 loan.
Federal campaign finance records show that Coats made the loan on April 22, less than two weeks before Tuesday's primary in which he faces four other candidates for the Republican nomination.
Coats spokesman Pete Seat said Wednesday that the loan was temporary, "to bridge that gap between the pledges and the deposits — with fundraising events that were scheduled and folks who pledged to attend but the money hadn't been deposited yet."
Coats, who was recruited by national Republicans to seek the seat, worked as a lawyer and lobbyist in Washington after leaving the Senate in 1999 after 10 years in office. He has faced criticism for having not yet filed a disclosure report on his personal finances that was due April 4.
Coats made a $25,000 contribution to his campaign soon after he entered the race in February for the seat Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh is giving up. The new loan represents about half of the about $420,000 Coats had raised from other sources through April 14.
State Sen. Marlin Stutzman, one of the other candidates in the GOP primary, said the Coats loan showed that he was concerned about winning the primary.
Stutzman, who gave $31,000 to his campaign, said he didn't anticipate contributing much more of his own money and that he had raised more than $160,000 in the past week from across the country following an endorsement from Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.
"He's loaning himself some money and running to Washington to raise money from his old buddies out there," Stutzman said.
Seat said Coats' financial disclosure report was being reviewed for accuracy and would be filed before the primary. He said he hadn't seen the preliminary report and didn't know what it would say.
Stutzman said Coats was experienced enough that he should have had the disclosure report filed by now.
"To me it looks like he's hiding lobbying income that he doesn't want public right now," Stutzman said.