Bill Graham spent $1.5 million in 2007.
The Republican gubernatorial candidate's biggest expense was $280,177 in consulting fees and reimbursements to Fetzer-Stephens, a Raleigh-based firm that no longer works for Graham, according to campaign finance reports.
Graham also spent $154,917 for television advertising to Los Angeles-based Strategic Perception, a media firm that previously worked on Graham's gas-tax campaign.
He also paid $133,871 the Fort Lauderdale-based Macsata-Kornegay Group for fundraising consulting.
Another major expense was salaries and housing for nearly 60 college students last summer.
Graham paid $131,267 on contract labor to the students and $61,906 for apartments and college housing in Salisbury, Asheboro, Hendersonville, High Point, Asheville, Charlotte and Wilmington.
That's a strategy typically used by Dee Stewart, a Raleigh-based political consultant who received $63,000 from the campaign.
Aaron Lay, a spokesman for the campaign, said that the students knocked on more than 140,000 doors across North Carolina.
"What they did mainly was introduce Bill to the voters and also ask them what issues they were concerned with," he said. "We wanted to hear from the voters themselves."
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Aaron Lay Election Fraud?
Isn't this the same Aaron Lay that plead guilty to some kind of election fraud?
He plead guilty to something involving his work with the McHenry campaign.