Republican House candidate Maggie Brooks says she’s raised more than $521,000 in the second funraising quarter, a figure that is sure to keep her competitive with Democratic incumbent Rep. Louise Slaughter.

Slaughter said in a statement earlier today that her campaign has raised $530,000 this fundraising quarter.

While the complete topline numbers are not out yet, that probably puts her at more than $1 million so far.

But the Brooks campaign’s math says they’ve outraised Slaughter so far in the first two fundraising quarters of 2012. Brooks says she will have raised nearly $40,000 more than Slaughter.

A feather in the cap for Brooks is that she entered the race relatively late and only became a declared candidate in March (only after some high profile New York Republicans, including former Gov. George Pataki, talked her up at the state GOP convention in Rochester, her home turf).

It’s not surprising that the Slaughter-Brooks race is going to be a major political slugfest of the year. Now it’s shaping up to the most expensive.

Here is Brooks’ news release sent out this afternoon:

The Congressional campaign of County Executive Maggie Brooks today announced that it would submit a Second Quarter fundraising total of over $521,000.

Today, Louise Slaughter attempted to take a victory lap to celebrate her special-interest fueled filing for the Second Quarter, but once again her campaign has failed to get the facts straight:

Fact: Maggie Brooks, a first-time Congressional candidate who announced her campaign only 15 weeks ago, has outraised her opponent, a 25-year entrenched incumbent, in the First Quarter and has now matched her opponent in the Second Quarter, with an anticipated filing for the quarter of over $521,000. That means that Maggie Brooks has now outraised Louise Slaughter by nearly $40,000 through the first two quarters of 2012.

Fact: Slaughter credits her Second Quarter fundraising results to her “effective work and tireless energy on jobs and the economy.” Local voters know this is a laughable statement, given the dismal employment data released last week showing the Slaughter tax and spend record has been devastating our economy and keeping millions of Americans out of work.

Fact: Louise Slaughter is the ultimate entrenched Washington insider who is wildly out of touch with everyday taxpayers across Monroe County. More than half of Slaughter’s funds have been supplied though shadowy liberal Political Action Committees and big government special interest groups, while the vast majority of Maggie Brooks’ grassroots support has come from within Monroe County. Source: OpenSecrets.org

Fact: Louise Slaughter owns one of the worst attendance records in the entire House of Representatives over the last two years. While Louise Slaughter was busy missing important votes in Congress, apparently she had time to instead rub elbows with out of town special interest donors. Meanwhile, County Executive Maggie Brooks has been working diligently to serve and protect the taxpayers of Monroe County each and every day.

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