Sen. Stephen Saland still has most of his robust campaign war chest still intact, according to his 32-day pre-general campaign filing with the state Board of Elections.

Saland, R-Poughkeepsie, has $393,093 in cash on hand for the next month to use against Democrat Terry Gipson and Conservative Party nominee Neil Di Carlo, the man who nearly defeated him for the Republican line.

Records show Saland has only spent $23,017 in the last several weeks, and that was mostly on staff. More than $12,000 was spent on print advertising.

There a few ways to view Saland’s spending so far.

One angle is that he did not expect a close race against Di Carlo, an underfunded candidate whose primary issue was Saland’s “yes” vote for same-sex marriage and his spending, as a result, was meager. But Saland’s campaign did take the time to identify absentee ballot voters and target them, a strategy that paid off in the end. Saland ultimately retained the GOP line with a 42-vote margin.

Still, his victory came relatively cheaply, spending far less money than the two Republicans who provided yes votes — Sens. Mark Grisanti and Roy McDonald. And now he has a gigantic money advantage heading in to November. Gipson reported  $41,298 in cash on hand this week.

Updated: Actually, Saland’s victory was costly to a degree. He reported more than $600,000 in cash on hand a month prior to the primary, dropping down to $388,118 in the 11-day pre-primary filing. Still, the point remains that Saland still has a large amount of money on hand, close to what he had at the beginning for the year, and the other Republicans who voted in favor of the measure have rather depleted cash reserves.

Di Carlo’s latest filing is not online yet. But he last reported an anemic $3,372 in the bank 10 days after the primary concluded.

Saland also collected a $5,000 contribution from Sen. Jim Alesi, who appears to be on something of a giving spree of late. As this blogged first reported last month, Alesi has been donating freely either out of his old campaign account or his own pocket to Saland, McDonald and Grisanti.

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