Kerry Moves $7.2 Million to Senate Coffers

ABC News’ David Chalian Reports: If you wrote a check to (unsuccessfully) help John Kerry get elected president in 2004, your money may now be spent on his efforts to continue to represent the people of Massachusetts in the United States Senate.

Unlike Sen. Hillary Clinton and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani who transferred funds from their respective Senate campaign accounts to bolster their presidential campaign bank accounts in the first three months of this year, Sen. John Kerry sent his money in the reverse direction.

Kerry, who faced some criticism in the aftermath of his 2004 loss for having millions of unspent dollars in his presidential campaign accounts, transferred the remaining $7.2 million in his 2004 campaign account to his 2008 reelection campaign for the Senate. Kerry announced in January that he would not be making another run for the White House in 2008, but will instead seek reelection to the Senate.

Though Kerry faced some pressure last fall to unload his presidential campaign war chest to the Democratic campaign committees charged with winning congressional majorities in the House and the Senate, the Massachusetts Senator held on to most of the cash. Traveling the country and putting his email list of three million online supporters to work, Kerry helped raise more than $11 million for candidates in the 2006 midterm election cycle and donated more than $2 million from his presidential campaign to the House and Senate campaign committees. In the end, Democrats won control of the House and the Senate and Kerry has tons of seed money for his reelection efforts.