By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff

The “incumbents’ advantage” in fundraising is a source of common complaints from those who believe the escalating amount of money needed to run a serious congressional campaign inhibits competition. In the vast majority of House contests in each election cycle, the incumbents use their established campaign organizations to outraise their opponents, often by overwhelming margins.

But not always. A CQ Politics survey of campaign finance reports for activity through Sept. 30, filed with the Federal Election Commission in mid-October by House candidates for 2008 races, found a number of challengers who entered the final quarter of 2007 with sizable campaign treasuries — including a few who even raised more money than the incumbents for the year so far.

The following, the latest in a series of CQ Politics “Top 10” lists, shows the leading fundraisers among House challengers through the first three-quarters of this year, with the candidate’s name, party, district and total receipts in round numbers, along with the challenged incumbent’s name and party in parentheses. An analysis of each of the races follows the list; for some candidates, cash-on-hand figures exceed funds raised this year because of leftover money carried over from last year by their campaign committees.

Best-funded House challengers for 2008

1) Jim Ryun, R, Kansas’ 2nd, $880,000 ( Nancy Boyda , D)

2) Sandy Treadwell, R, New York’s 20th, $822,000 ( Kirsten Gillibrand , D)

3) Francisco “Quico” Canseco, R, Texas’ 23rd, $819,000 ( Ciro D. Rodriguez , D)

4) Andrew Saul, R, New York’s 19th, $782,000 ( John Hall , D)

5) Deborah Honeycutt, R, Georgia’s 13th, $708,000 ( David Scott , D)

6) Kay Barnes, D, Missouri’s 6th, $656,000 ( Sam Graves , R)

7) Jim Hines, D, Connecticut’s 4th, $618,000 ( Christopher Shays , R)

8) Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, R, Texas’ 22nd, $607,000 ( Nick Lampson , D)

9) Christine Jennings, D, Florida’s 13th, $592,000 ( Vern Buchanan , R)

10) Dan Seals, D, Illinois’ 10th, $567,000 ( Mark Steven Kirk , R)

The races:

• 1) Kansas’ 2nd District (East — Topeka, Manhattan, Leavenworth)

Challenger: Jim Ryun, Republican ($880,000 raised, $335,000 cash on hand)

Incumbent: Nancy Boyda , Democrat ($547,000 raised, $488,000 cash on hand)

Ryun is a challenger for 2008, but he has the fundraising heft of an incumbent because he recently was one. Ryun in 2006 lost his bid for a sixth House term to Boyda, in a rematch of the 2004 race won by Ryun.

So a Ryun-Boyda race in 2008 would be their third matchup in as many election cycles. That is not assured, though, as Ryun faces serious competition in the Aug. 5 Republican primary from state Treasurer Lynn Jenkins.

Ryun is supported by many of his former House colleagues, particularly fellow conservative Republicans.

Jenkins, though off to a solid fundraising start for a first-time U.S. House candidate, reported less than half the receipts taken in by Ryun. Jenkins raised $420,000 through the end of September and had $361,000 left to spend. Some of her notable third-quarter contributors included former Kansas Rep. Jan Meyers, who held the state’s 3rd District seat from 1985 through 1996; Illinois Rep. Judy Biggert , a moderately conservative five-term House member from suburban Chicago who donated via her own House campaign committee; and Republican Majority for Choice PAC, which assists Republican candidates who support abortion rights.

• 2) New York’s 20th District (North Hudson Valley — Saratoga Springs, Glens Falls)

Challenger: Sandy Treadwell, Republican ($822,000 raised, $637,000 cash on hand)

Incumbent: Kirsten Gillibrand , Democrat ($2 million raised, $1.6 million cash on hand)

Treadwell became acquainted with donors in his prior role as state Republican Party chairman, so it’s not a surprise he is one of this cycle’s best-funded challenger candidates. Treadwell, who also previously held the appointed position of New York secretary of state, has a receipts total that includes about $320,000 of his own money. His notable third-quarter donors included former Rep. Bill Paxon (1989-99), who represented a district in the western part of upstate New York.

Like Kansas candidate Jenkins, Treadwell favors abortion rights and is supported by the Republican Majority for Choice PAC.

The candidate field for the Sept. 9 Republican primary also includes Richard Wager, a former aide to New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg ($249,000 raised, $161,000 cash on hand); Michael Rocque, a retired Army lieutenant colonel ($121,000 raised, $57,000 cash on hand); and John Wallace, a real estate company owner ($6,600 raised, $53,700 cash on hand).

The New York 20 contest will be among the nation’s most expensive House races in 2008. Gillibrand, who unseated four-term Republican Rep. John E. Sweeney in 2006, reported raising $2.1 million in the first nine months of 2007 — the most of any House freshman and the second highest amount of any House member who was first elected or re-elected in 2006.

• 3) Texas’ 23rd District (Southwest — south and northwest San Antonio and suburbs, Del Rio)

Challenger: Francisco “Quico” Canseco, Republican ($819,000 raised, $304,000 cash on hand)

Incumbent: Ciro D. Rodriguez , Democrat ($573,000 raised, $592,000 cash on hand)

Most of the money that Canseco, a lawyer, has raised so far for his 2008 campaign against Rodriguez has come from his own pockets. Rodriguez made a congressional comeback in 2006 by unseating seven-term Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla in a district that was redrawn in the middle of that year by a federal court to include the heavily Hispanic south side of San Antonio. That area includes Rodriguez’ home; it was part of the 28th Congressional District that he had represented in his first House tenure (1997-2005), but lost to Democrat Henry Cuellar in the 2004 primary and in a rematch in early 2006.

The redistricting changes, based on a Supreme Court ruling that the previous 23rd District map disadvantaged Hispanic voters, made the district less friendly to Republicans. But the district still is politically competitive on paper, and Rodriguez could face a tough fight.

• 4) New York’s 19th District (Hudson Valley — Peekskill)

Challenger: Andrew Saul, Republican ($782,000 raised, $452,000 cash on hand)

Incumbent: John Hall , Democrat ($1 million raised, $800,000 cash on hand)

Saul, a businessman, is the front-runner for the Republican nomination against Hall, who was elected in 2006 over six-term Republican Rep. Sue W. Kelly. New York’s 19th District, where metropolitan New York City ends and “upstate” New York begins, is traditionally Republican-leaning turf that favored President Bush in the 2004 election. But it is enough of a swing district that Hall was able to ride the 2006 national anti-Republican tide to victory.

Saul has received the overwhelming majority of his contributions from individual donors, but has also contributed $100,000 of his own money to his campaign.

The 2008 Republican challenger will try to make the case that Hall is too liberal for the district. The House freshman has been more loyal to the House Democratic leadership than many of his colleagues who first won seats in Republican-leaning districts last year. In the first nine months of 2007, Hall’s 95.5 percent “party unity” score — a measure of how often Hall sided with his party on House votes that divided most Democrats from most Republicans — was among the highest in the 42-member House Democratic freshman class, which includes the 30 Democrats who captured seats that had been held by Republicans.

• 5) Georgia’s 13th District (Atlanta suburbs — parts of Clayton, Cobb and Douglas counties)

Challenger: Deborah Honeycutt, Republican ($708,000 raised, $34,000 cash on hand)

Incumbent: Democratic Rep. David Scott ($433,000 raised, $179,000 cash on hand)

All of the races in this Top 10 list are rated as competitive by CQ Politics at this point in the campaign season, except this rematch of a 2006 contest won in a landslide by incumbent Scott. This is a heavily Democratic district, where Scott — one of Georgia’s four African-American Democrats in Congress — has dominated his three House elections. And Republican Honeycutt’s low cash-on-hand figure is a hint that her big receipts total is a bit illusory: In order to raise that money, she has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an expensive “direct mail” campaign.

• 6) Missouri’s 6th District (St. Joseph, part of Kansas City)

Challenger: Kay Barnes, Democrat ($656,000 raised, $578,000 cash on hand)

Incumbent: Sam Graves , Republican ($948,000 raised, $756,000 cash on hand)

Barnes this year finished an eight-year run as mayor of Kansas City, part of which is included in a district that also takes in suburbs of that city — and substantial rural territory in northwest Missouri that is Graves’ political base. Barnes surely will be the toughest Democratic challenger faced to date by Graves, who won narrowly in 2000 to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Pat Danner but has easily beaten subpar Democratic opposition in subsequent elections.

• 7) Connecticut’s 4th District (Southwest — Bridgeport, Stamford)

Challenger: Jim Himes, Democrat ($618,000 raised, $547,000 cash on hand)

Incumbent: Christopher Shays , Republican ($838,000 raised, $594,000 cash on hand)

As a result of a long-evolving partisan shift in the region, Shays currently is the only Republican among the 22 House members who represent the six-state New England region. After surviving close races in this partisan swing district against Democrat Diane Farrell in each of his past two elections, Shays will face a new but also tough opponent in investment banker Himes.

Symbolic of the fact that Shays again is high on the national Democratic Party’s target list, Himes’ third-quarter contributions from political committees included those linked to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland and Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois (who in 2006, as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, spearheaded the party’s successful effort to gain control of the House).

Also seeking the Democratic nomination is Lee Whitnum, whose $5,100 in total receipts included a $5,000 loan that she made to her own campaign and a single $100 contribution.

Shays’ reputation as a GOP moderate is staked on the fact that he votes against his party leadership more frequently than nearly every House Republican. In keeping with the “maverick” persona he has cultivated, Shays said last month that he has told House Republican leaders he will not seek re-election in 2008 — a prospect that would greatly enhance the Democrats’ chances of winning the 4th District seat — if he were not promised the top GOP slot on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

• 8) Texas’ 22nd District (Southeast Houston and southern suburbs — Sugar Land, Pearland, part of Pasadena)

Challenger: Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, Republican ($607,000 raised, $465,000 cash on hand)

Incumbent: Nick Lampson , Democrat ($833,000 raised, $679,000 cash on hand)

Sekula-Gibbs is a former House member, but her two-month tenure that began in November 2006 was an anomaly. Sekula-Gibbs won a special election to fill the seat from which former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay had resigned in June 2006 under a cloud of ethics controversies. But that contest coincided with the 2006 general election, and Sekula-Gibbs lost to Democrat Lampson in the full-term contest for the seat — in part because a court ruling had prevented the Republicans from vacating the renomination DeLay had won that March and replaced him on the ballot with Sekula-Gibbs, which in turn forced her to run a nearly impossible write-in campaign.

The 2008 contest in Texas 22 is a high-ranking target for Republican strategists, who view the Democratic takeover in this usual Republican stronghold as the result of DeLay’s problems. And Sekula-Gibbs’ total receipts, which include a $240,000 loan that Sekula-Gibbs made to her own campaign on Sept. 28, make her financially competitive with Lampson.

But she has plenty of opposition in the field for the March 4 Republican primary, including Pete Olson, a former chief of staff to Texas Sen. John Cornyn ($218,000 raised, $181,000 cash on hand); Dean Hrbacek, a former mayor of Sugar Land, the largest city wholly within the district ($159,000 raised, $120,000 cash on hand); state Rep. Robert Talton ($35,000 raised, $28,000 cash on hand); and Jim Squier, a former family district court judge ($13,400 raised, $13,400 cash on hand). John Manlove — the former mayor of Pasadena, which is partly in the 22nd — just filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission.

Olson’s third-quarter contributors included former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm (1985-2002), for whom Olson once worked as an aide and whom Cornyn succeeded in the Senate; David Bradley, chairman of Atlantic Media Company; David Hobbs, a former White House legislative aide to President Bush; and Todd Boulanger, a senior vice president at Cassidy and Associates. Both Olson and Hrbacek made personal loans of $50,000 to their own campaigns.

• 9) Florida’s 13th District (Southwest — Sarasota, part of Bradenton)

Challenger: Christine Jennings, Democrat ($592,000 raised, $256,000 cash on hand)

Incumbent: Vern Buchanan , Republican ($1.4 million raised, $764,000 cash on hand)

This race in southwestern Florida will be a replay of the most controversial House contest of 2006. Buchanan edged Jennings by 369 votes to succeed two-term Republican Rep. Katherine Harris, who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. But Jennings contested the result, charging that malfunctions by electronic voting machines accounted for a large number of uncounted votes in a pro-Jennings county. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said recently that initial tests yielded no evidence of machine malfunction, but that more testing was needed.

Jennings’ total receipts include campaign funds she raised early in 2007 and which were deposited in her 2006 congressional campaign account. Jennings in July filed a new statement of candidacy and a statement of organization with the FEC; she raised $263,000 in the third quarter for that account.

• 10) Illinois’ 10th District (North and northwest Chicago suburbs — Waukegan)

Challenger: Dan Seals, Democrat ($567,000 raised, $499,000 cash on hand)

Incumbent: Republican Rep. Mark Steven Kirk ($1.8 million raised, $1.5 million cash on hand)

Seals, a marketing executive, made a strong candidate debut as the 2006 Democratic challenger to Kirk, whose 53 percent vote share in the anti-Republican political environment was far less than he received in his two other re-election campaigns in the politically competitive, mainly suburban 10th District north of Chicago.

The Feb. 5 Democratic primary will attract more attention than did the 2006 Democratic primary, a low-profile race that Seals easily won. Seals this time faces a strong primary opponent in Jay Footlik, who as a former aide to President Bill Clinton was chief liaison to the American Jewish constituency. Footlik reported raising $480,000 and had $414,000 left to spend as October began.

Kirk, one of just eight current House Republicans from districts President Bush did not win in 2004, has raised more campaign money than any other House Republican this year.