| Subject: [EL] GOP groups overwhelms Dems - or do they? |
| From: "Smith, Brad" <BSmith@law.capital.edu> |
| Date: 9/28/2010, 6:27 AM |
| To: Election Law |
AP: "Just five weeks from midterm elections, groups allied with the Republican Party and financed in part by corporations and millionaires have amassed a crushing 6-1 advantage in television spending, and now are dominating the airwaves in closely contested districts and states across the country."
- Talk about a lack of perspective!
The three Democratic Party national committees have outspent the three Republican committees by over $25 million this cycle, and have about $24 million more in cash on hand, according to the most recent FEC reports. This independent spending appears simply to bring the GOP and its allies nearly to parity with the Democrats.
Well, actually no, it doesn't. Beyond Party and IE spending, Democratic House candidates enter the final 5 weeks with a total cash on hand advantage of almost $75 million over their GOP opponents. Democratic Senate candidates have just over $1 million less aggregate cash on hand than their Republican counterparts, but have already spent about $7 million more, and much less of their spending to date has gone to bloody primary fights.
As for each of the specific races mentioned in the AP report, as of the last FEC reporting period:
In the Nevada senate, Harry Reid (D) has outspent Sharron Angle (R) by nearly $16 million, and had more than $7 million more cash on hand than Angle;
In the Washington Senate race, Patty Murray (D) has outspent her Republican opponent Dino Rossi by almost $9 million and had about $1 million more cash on hand;
In the Colorado Senate race, Michael Bennett (D) had outspend Ken Buck (R) by almost $6.5 million, and had a cash on hand advantage of over $1 million;
In the New Hampshire Senate race, Paul Hodes (D) had spent almost $1 million more than Kelly Ayotte (R), and had about $800,000 more cash on hand; and finally
Only in the Missouri Senate race had the Republican (Roy Blunt) outspent the Democrat (Robin Carnahan), by less than $900,000. Blunt also had a modest cash on hand advantage of about $340,000.
Meanwhile, as the article notes, "labor is devoting much of its general election money on get-out-the-vote efforts." So the Democratic money advantage may effectively be even greater than it appears.
Given the enthusiasm gap, we would expect Republicans to be having more success in fundraising than the Democrats, so the surprise here could well be the extent to which Democrats outspend Republicans even while losing ground this fall.
As for these independent committees? Well, Chris Van Hollen (D-Md, Chair of DCCC) sums it up about right: "There's no even playing field." Indeed not, though Van Hollen's implication as to which party has the uphill climb is wrong. The Democrats have now and should finish the campaign with a significant overall spending advantage, as they did in 2008.
This independent spending is serving as an equalizer. The Citizens United decision has done just what it was intended to do - increased competition, assisted challengers, and allowed more voices to be heard.
B
radley A. SmithAP: "Just five weeks from midterm elections, groups allied with the Republican Party and financed in part by corporations and millionaires have amassed a crushing 6-1 advantage in television spending, and now are dominating the airwaves in closely contested districts and states across the country."
Who turned on the corporate spigot? Oh yeah.
The NY Times offers this report.
See here.
Following up on this post, a West Virginia state supreme court justice has, on further consideration, reversed himself and decided to recuse in a case, citing Tony Mauro's earlier post on the case. (Original story: "A West Virginia Supreme Court justice has refused to take himself out of a case involving the state cap on non-economic damages, even though he pledged during his election campaign that he would never vote to overturn the law imposing the cap."). And the justice is not happy about the power of the blogosphere, which he says forced him to recuse in this case:
AP offers this report about how NOM wants to to run ads in the Rhode Island governor's race but not comply with laws imposed on political committees. A press release I received said the pleadings are on the James Madison Center's website, but so far I don't see them there.
UPDATE: There's also a NOM challenge in Florida, which I think will eventually appear on the Center's web page.
Brenda Wright blogs at the ACS blog.
Salon reports.
-- Rick Hasen William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law Loyola Law School 919 Albany Street Los Angeles, CA 90015-1211 (213)736-1466 (213)380-3769 - fax rick.hasen@lls.edu http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html http://electionlawblog.org