Editor’s note: This is one of three reports on expenditures made by local candidates running for county or state office based on information from the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board. The figures below are expenditures the campaigns have made since June 6, the day after this year’s primary election.

Iowa House District 72 state Rep. Dean Fisher, R-Montour, is seeking his fourth term as a lawmaker. His Democratic challenger is Tama County Emergency Management Coordinator Mindy Benson of Tama. The district covers all of Tama County, the southern and western portions of Marshall County and two townships in southern Black Hawk County.

Democrat

Mindy Benson

Total expenditures since primary election: $312.18

How they spent:

· All recorded expenditures were for campaign signs.

Republican

State Rep. Dean Fisher

Total expenditures since primary election: $37,416.84

How they spent:

· Political contributions: $32,700

· Campaign supplies (signs, campaign cards, stamps, mailers): $3,916.72

· Other: $489.28 spent on advertising in the T-R, Tama News Herald/Toledo Chronicle, Mid-Iowa Enterprise and La Porte City Progress Review newspapers; $170.46 on parade supplies, including candy and water; $115.38 in web fees for deanfisher.com; $25 on a Tama County plat book from the county auditor’s office.

Analysis

The district’s Republican incumbent has been spending more than his Democratic challenger. The vast majority of Fisher’s campaign’s expenditures have gone toward the Iowa Republican Party in political contributions, while campaign supplies and advertising account for most of the rest of his campaign’s expenditures.

Benson has had little spending activity since the June 5 primary, where she beat three fellow Democrats in this year’s primary. She had no expenditure reports on-file for the July 19 and Nov. 2 reporting periods, according to the IECDB website.