Democratic congressional candidates have racked up big campaign cash over the past three months, new fundraising reports show, as the party faces an increasingly well-funded Republican Party and looming questions about President Joe Biden’s strength at the top of the ticket.
The financial picture is largely positive for Democrats — all but one of their leading candidates in the 10 most competitive Senate races outperformed their likely Republican opponents, as did virtually all of the leading Democratic House candidates in seats classified as “disputed” by the non-partisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
Still, Republicans feel good about where they are, as many of their top House candidates have been saving money for a tough fall, while some of their top Senate candidates have been tapping into their own personal wealth. to keep pace with your opponents. And the general scenario in the Senate remains favorable to the Republican Party.
But it is all happening against a backdrop of historic turmoil, following the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump and as Democrats weigh whether Biden should be their presidential candidate – dramatic and difficult developments that could cast a long shadow over the upcoming elections. November.
Democratic Senate candidates had been working to distance themselves from the top of the ticket even before Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month, and are expected to continue doing so.
Last week, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana launched a TV ad saying he is “standing up to everyone” to address rising costs, adding, “I voted to force the Biden administration to expand drilling, to bring down the price of energy, made pharmaceutical companies lower the cost of prescription drugs.”
Republicans are expected to continue linking these vulnerable Democrats to Biden. Separating himself from the top of the ticket is arguably a more pressing challenge for Tester and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the two Democratic senators running for re-election in states Trump won handily in 2020.
Both senators still dominate their Republican opponents in fundraising, with Brown raising $12.8 million to Republican businessman Bernie Moreno’s $4.4 million in the second quarter. Brown ended the period with more than double the money in his account. Meanwhile, Tester raised $10.6 million, compared to $5.3 million, including a $1 million personal loan, for Republican Tim Sheehy. And Tester ended the quarter with a campaign account three times larger than Sheehy’s.
Sheehy, a businessman, is among the wealthy Republican candidates who have tapped their own wallets to boost their campaigns. Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida loaned his campaign $5.6 million; Eric Hovde, a Republican running for Senate in Wisconsin, loaned his campaign $5 million; and Dave McCormick, the Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, loaned his campaign $3.1 million.
While some Republicans have touted the money raised through other forms of fundraising, individual campaign reports filed Monday showed they still fall short of their Democratic opponents. In all but one of the 10 competitive races, Democratic Senate candidates raised more than their Republican opponents, raising a total of $90.6 million to the Republicans’ $64.4 million.
Democrats also ended June with more money in their accounts in all but two races. Top Democrats ended the quarter with a combined $84.4 million on hand, compared to Republicans’ combined $51.1 million.
“Senate Democrats’ strong, battle-tested fundraising is once again a testament to the support they have garnered from voters and grassroots supporters,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Spokesman Tommy Garcia. in a statement. “While each day brings new revelations about the lies, baggage and disqualifying failures of Republican Senate candidates, Senate Democrats are building winning campaigns and communicating with voters about how they are fighting for the priorities that matter most to their American workers.”
Republicans have not been too concerned about Democrats’ consistent fundraising advantage, in part because of Biden’s own struggles in key Senate states.
“They have to redefine themselves. They have to get away from Biden,” National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said last week when asked about Democratic fundraising.
“I’m happy to pay for the gas on Air Force One to take Joe Biden to any of these states like Montana and Ohio,” Daines added. “Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown want to stay thousands of miles away from Joe Biden, so their ads will try to provide that distance. But the reality of their voting record is that they are tied at the hip.”
Battle for the house
In House elections, Democrats have enjoyed a major fundraising boom since Trump took office in 2017, a dynamic that shows no signs of abating this election cycle. But Democrats in key races will also need to balance the fallout from Biden’s debate — after which 18 House members called on Biden to step down as the party’s nominee, including five in races classified as competitive by the Cook Political Report. Two other swing-seat Democrats said Trump will win the election, while another stopped short of calling for Biden to withdraw.
A spokesperson for the National Republican House Committee told NBC News that its polls over the past few months, in total, show the House Democratic candidates with little daylight for Biden.
On the fundraising front, 35 Democratic House candidates in seats classified as competitive by the Cook Political Report raised $1 million in the second quarter, compared with 17 Republicans who did so in those races.
But incumbents from both parties appeared to have strong results in the second quarter. An NBC News analysis of these Cook-ranked seats shows that incumbents, on average, have raised funds at a similar pace in both parties and have accumulated similar amounts of cash on hand. The average Democratic incumbent raised $981,000 and had $2.5 million in cash on hand as of June, compared to $940,000 raised and $2.4 million for Republicans.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Washington Democrat who won her election by less than 1 percentage point in 2022 in a district that Trump won by four points in 2020, according to Kos daily election data, was the biggest fundraiser in Cook’s “vacant” seats. It raised $2.2 million and increased its cash reserves to more than $4 million.
Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican who also won by less than 1 point in 2022 in a district that Biden won by 10 points in 2020, raised $1.6 million, more than any other Republican incumbent in a “vacant” chair.
But there is a significant difference in fundraising by opponents seeking to attack and flip seats for their party.
The average House Democratic challenger in these Cook rankings The races (among those who formally clinched the nomination) raised nearly $1.3 million last quarter and had $1.8 million rolled in, while the average Republican House challenger who clinched the nomination raised less than $500,000 and he also had about $500,000 in cash on hand.
In six of Cook’s nine “contested” seats with a Democratic incumbent, the Democrat raised more than double what his primary Republican challenger raised in the second quarter. And in eight of those nine races, the Democratic incumbent had more than three times as much cash on hand as the Republican incumbent.
The Perez and Lawler seats give an idea of this dynamic. None of the Republicans who ran against Perez raised more than $310,000. But former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones, Lawler’s opponent in the fall, surpassed him last quarter with just over $1.6 million raised.
A Republican strategist involved in House elections this cycle compared the GOP’s fundraising to “building a moat” to isolate themselves from well-funded Democratic opponents.
“We don’t need to have more money than the Democrats — it’s a very strong environment and we have a very strong recruiting class,” said the Republican strategist, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “We just need to have enough to be competitive in the air, and that means not spending more than 3, 4, 5 to 1 in the air, which was the dynamic in some of these races last cycle. We won’t lose sleep if certain candidates are outperformed in the second quarter if their cash flow is strong.”
But the strategist raised concerns about GOP challengers not being able to find ways to raise money, arguing that “if you are completely unable to tell a story about yourself, you become whatever bad thing the Democrats say about you.” ”. up in the air.”
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Viet Shelton praised the party’s strong fundraising in a statement to NBC News.
“Legislative races have always been about the strength of our candidates, which is why we are seeing so much fundraising momentum from Democrats across the country,” Shelton said, in a statement that included a link rounding recent internal poll from both parties showing a mix of results in competitive House seats.
“Voters know that Democrats do their job when they are in the majority, while extremist Republicans simply sow chaos. That’s why recent polls have shown Democrats outpacing their Republican opponents in the battlefield,” Shelton added.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
