…quarter 1 fundraising numbers are out! Yay!

The Conservatives have outfundraised all of the opposition parties, combined, in the first quarter of 2010. According to the first quarter returns, just posted on Elections Canada’s website, the Conservatives have raised $4,023,923.14 from 32,466 donors. That’s $2,846,507 more than the other parties, including the Greens.

The Liberals raised $1,589,953.81 in the first quarter from 15,255 people, while the Bloc Québécois raised $123, 069.64 from 1,381 people and the NDP raised $900,198.01 from 12,982. The Green Party raised $233,285.57 from 2,919 donors.

Even though most news stories, including the above, will spin this as good news for the Conservatives, the numbers are probably most disappointing for them.

As the always-useful Pundits Guide shows, the number of Conservative donors is down 18% from Quarter 1 last year, while the number of Liberal donors has stayed relatively consistent. The drop in the amount raised by the Liberals merely reflects an absence of the big ticket fundraisers we saw at the start of last year – presumably the usual suspects will get hit up for their thousand dollars at some point this year.

Of course, context is always key. Remember the “grassroots fury” and the thousands of Canadians up in arms over prorogation? Well, maybe that led to a drop in Tory donations, but it did little to increase the number of people donating money to the opposition parties.