By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
Huntsville Mayor and 2018 Republican Gubernatorial candidate Tommy Battle reported another strong month of campaign fundraising.
Mayor Battle is reporting raising over $303,968.21 in July. Battle reported expenditures of $10,906.32. Battle began July with $356,133.83 in cash in his account and ended the month with $648,398.82 in his account.
The biggest contribution was actually an $85,000 transfer from the Battle Campaign. The largest actual contributors were: W.S. Propst $50,000, Francisco J. Collazo $25,000, Harold R. Brewer $10,000, Angel R. Almodovar $10,000, Wayne McMahan LLC $10,000, Samples Commercial Real Estate $10,000, and Joseph A. Hollingsworth $10,000.
W.S. Propst is a prominent commercial Huntsville area real estate developer.
Francisco J. Collazo is the CEO and President of Collazo Enterprises Inc. He is the co-founder of COLSA Corporation, a business enterprise which provides engineering and support services to NASA, the US Army, the US Air Force, the US Navy, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Missile Defense Agency.
Tommy Battle was elected Huntsville’s mayor in 2008, defeating a popular three-term incumbent. He won re-elected in 2012 and 2016 both times with over 80 percent of the vote.
Battle emphasizes that he is a lifelong conservative. He grew up in the Birmingham area.
Tommy Battle writes on his website that working, “Together with leaders across North Alabama, Tommy has helped to create more than 17,000 new jobs for the region. Those jobs have been with Remington, Polaris, GE Aviation, and many others. Creating advanced manufacturing jobs with those companies is also building an Alabama workforce that is qualified and prepared to lead our state into the 21st Century.”
According to Battle’s site, “His commitment to schools helped his city build more than $250 million in new facilities for Huntsville’s students. His commitment to education, however, is evident with “Mayor Battle’s Book Club,” a program which has provided more than 100,000 new reading books to children across the city.” Battle claims that his fiscally conservative policies have had a greater than $2.4 billion economic impact on the local economy and has led to seven straight Triple A credit rating for Huntsville.
Tommy’s wife, Eula, is a retired teacher and former Madison County Teacher of the Year,
In 2017 PACs (Political Action Committees) have reported receiving $5,770,481.85 to this point in the year,
Republican candidates have reported receiving $5,001,862.57 in contributions.
Democratic candidates have reported receiving $345,879.54 in contributions.
Third party candidates have not reported raising anything to this point in 2017.
These totals do not include federal races like Congress or the U.S. Senate race that is underway.
Original information from Wikipedia contributed to this report.
