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FAIRFIELD, IOWA -- When Representative Curt Hanson won a seat in the Iowa House, he did so with some strong money backing him.

After the special election last fall, Hanson, (D) Fairfield, has embraced his first, albeit brief term as an Iowa Representative.

He recently declared his candidacy for re-election and our Fact Finder Team wanted to know why the campaign funds were so high.

Fact Finder found that Hanson easily spent more than $150,000 and his primary opponent, Stephen Burgmeier, also blew passed the $100,000.

Hanson tells Fact Finder they both received a large number of special interest funds because of the special election.  This permitted companies and organizations to give larger donations rather than splitting funds across many different races.

The race for the seat brought some national and strong state wide attention, something Hanson looks forward to not facing this fall.

“The attention to this campaign will be more local and think that is an advantage to the people in this district and in Iowa.  I think the national attention and state wide attention that was brought to this candidacy and to my opponent was unwanted and really tainted the campaign for both of us,” said Hanson.

Hanson tells Fact Finder he does not expect this campaign to be anywhere near last falls totals.

Wapello County Republicans’ chair, Trudy Caviness, told Fact Finder the average house campaign in south east Iowa likely ranges from 60 to 75 thousand dollars per candidate.

Hanson agreed with those numbers.

Caviness says campaign funds increase every year, but when elections roll around at the end of the year, we should not see any are candidates spending as much as we saw last fall.

In case you were wondering, the salary for an Iowa House of Representatives member is $25,000.