Dr. Trey Baucum is leading the pack again in this race raising more than $13,000 than his second place rival, retired Marine Lt. Colonel and Shreveport City Councilman Oliver Jenkins.

State Rep. Mike Johnson came in 3rd in the fundraising race.

Here are what five candidates who reported, all Republicans, reported in the 2nd quarter:

Trey Baucum: $157,846 + $100,000 loan from the candidate
Oliver Jenkins: $143,063.60 + $100,000 loan from the candidate
Mike Johnson: $130,340.28 + $50,000 loan from the candidate
Elbert Guillory: $88,132.42
Rick John: $15,551 + $2300.13 loan from the candidate

Here’s the current cash on hand:

Oliver Jenkins: $474,340.78
Trey Baucum: $473,898.54
Mike Johnson: $251,010.98
Elbert Guillory: $50,081.91
Rick John: $29,563.95

The cash on hand difference between Jenkins and Baucum is basically the difference between an extra box of push cards or two. $442.24 probably won’t be the difference between Trey Baucum making the runoff or not.

The second quarter fundraising is when we begin to separate the serious candidates from the pretenders. For once in a race, one of the joke candidates is not Elbert Guillory.

Rick John has to right the fundraising ship in the next quarter or he won’t make it until November. His campaign has an extremely high burn rate and not a whole lot of money coming in to replace it. Much of his campaign expenses so far have been either repaying himself campaign loans or his media consultants, Buisson Creative.

Everyone else doesn’t have any immediate fundraising problems they need to correct. Although Mike Johnson needs to be worried about the money gap between himself and Baucum and Jenkins, both of whom can self-fund more than him. But Johnson can offset it with his strong social conservative base.