By Alex Knott, CQ Staff

While Republican Sen. Ted Stevens was fending off corruption charges last month his Democratic challenger was raking in big bucks. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich raised $413,000 between July 1 and Aug. 6, according to the pre-primary report posted on his campaign Web site. He raised one-quarter of his total $1.7 million during this period and also reported nearly $462,000 in cash on hand.

Stevens, who was indicted on seven counts of filing false financial disclosures on July 29, has not filed his pre-primary report. It is due Thursday. As of the end of June, the Alaska Republican had raised $4.2 million and had nearly $1.7 million in the bank.

CQ Politics has changed its rating of this race from “Leans Republican” to “Leans Democrat” in light of Stevens’ recent troubles. Stevens, who is the longest-serving Republican senator, recently asked that the government’s case against him be tried in Alaska, a move the Justice Department opposes.

A July 30 post-indictment poll shows that Begich leads Stevens 50 percent to 37 percent with 11 percent expressing a preference for ‘other’ and 12 percent undecided. The margin of error was 4.5 percent.

Correction: The Begich cash-on-hand figure was corrected from the original post.

First posted Aug. 12, 2008 4:46 p.m.