Yesterday, Dan Merica and Matt Holt reported that the Democrats’ fundraising advantage, propelled by grassroots donors, is continuing to outpace GOP efforts. They examined the FEC reports for April, May and June from Senate candidates of both parties. Top raisers included Adam Schiff ($8.1 million), Colin Allred ($6.2 million), Bob Casey ($4 million), Tammy Baldwin ($3.2 million) and Lucas Kunce ($1.2 million, an immense amount for a Democrat challenging an incumbent Republican in Missouri). Schiff's haul spiked significantly after McCarthy gave in to the crackpot congressional MAGAts' demand that he be censured.
This is a trend that Democrats have enjoyed for years. In 2018, Republicans were gobsmacked by the amount of money small-dollar donors poured into Democratic campaigns, powered by antipathy to then-President Donald Trump. In 2020, the deluge continued, with Joe Biden’s presidential campaign raising over $1 billion, a presidential campaign record. And in 2022, Democratic candidates again significantly outraised Republicans as donors voiced their disapproval of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade just months before Election Day.
The advantage has significant implications for Republicans. Because candidates get far better rates on television advertising than committees and outside groups, Democrats are able to blanket the airwaves with less money, forcing top Republican donors to pour money into outside groups so that candidates can reach some parity on the air.
“When you are outspent as a candidate 7, 8, 9, 10 to one, you will become whatever the Democrats say you are,” said a Republican operative who has worked on campaigns throughout this surge in Democratic fundraising. “You will not have your own message or biography that is known to voters, you will become this Republican extremist that Democrats say you are in attack ads.”
The operative added: “It has been a major priority of the party apparatus writ large to make sure that candidates are raising resources this cycle to be competitive. … If we change that dynamic, it makes a huge difference.”
Jesse Hunt, a Republican operative who has worked on House, Senate, and gubernatorial races, acknowledged the issue but heralded the fact that Republicans have recruited a series of candidates this cycle who should be able to self-fund their campaigns.
“Dollars go further on the candidate side, you are looking at far better rates, particularly during the crunch time of an election cycle,” Hunt said. “And Democrats have had a massive advantage on the candidate side going back to 2018. Senate Republicans have wisely recruited quality candidates who can begin to break that advantage this cycle.”
That last paragraph is important whether for Senate races or House races. Candidates get much better rates than PACs or committees, which is why it is always better to contribute directly to a candidate’s campaign than to any middlemen like the DCCC or DSCC or anyone else.
Take a look at this Facebook ad that Maebe A Girl’s campaign is running. It’s doing spectacularly well and bringing the kind of money she can us etc compete on a more even playing field with her corporately-backed opponents, all of whom take huge amounts of the kind of special interest money that would tie their hands were any of them to ever get into Congress. Please consider contributing $20 to Maebe’s campaign so she can keep running the ad and bringing in grassroots contributions.
Republican candidates are also getting hurt because Trump monopolizes so much of the GOP fundraising universe. And this quarter — propelled by his indictments—he brought in over $35 million, almost double what he brought in in the first quarter. It's good that it's money that doesn't go towards helping GOP candidates. In fact, millions of it goes towards paying Trump's lawyers, especially since no one will work for him unless they get paid in advance.
And speaking of good ads, Mondaire Jones announced his election campaign yesterday and released this video, which is an exceptionally good one… fitting for an exceptionally good candidate. And on that same page where you can contribute to Maebe… you can contribute to Mondaire.
Jeepers, since these candidates are raising all this money from "small" donors, one might think that they'd serve the interests of these "small" donors once elected.
Why then do they refuse?
And because of the 'rates' thing, it must cost the party a ton of money (from the really big "investors") to "grayson" the shit out of the better candidates that they regularly do. The party must think it's really important to prevent all those better sounding people from winning primaries and seats. I wonder why that is...