WASHINGTON – Democrats continued to raise large amounts of campaign cash this month, but not enough to erase the Republicans’ multimillion-dollar lead.
According to the parties’ latest financial disclosure statements, Democratic Party committees outraised the national GOP committees during the first 18 days of October. Riding a wave of optimism about the party’s chances of gaining seats in the House and Senate during the Nov. 7 elections, the Democrats’ national re-election committees collected a total of $25.9 million in the period. The Republican committees raised $18.6 million over the same 18 days.
In addition, at least three dozen Democrats who are seeking seats in the House that are currently occupied by Republicans raised $1 million or more in the current election cycle – the minimum threshold that political experts say enables a challenger to mount a full-fledged election bid.
Nevertheless, the Democrats’ last-minute fundraising surge was not enough to overcome the Republicans’ earlier fundraising advantage. The three Republican Party committees had a total of $17 million more cash on hand than their Democratic counterparts as of Oct. 18, according to this week’s financial reports.
What’s more, Republican committees spent nearly twice as much on their toughest House races than Democratic committees did. The nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute calculated that Republican committees spent $1 million on average to help each of the 35 GOP incumbents who are considered to be most in danger of losing their reelections. Democratic committees spent about $574,000 on average on behalf of each of the Democratic challengers in those races.
And most of the Republican candidates in the House’s tightest contests reported that they had more money in the bank than their Democratic rivals.
With the midterm elections so near, both parties are pouring massive sums into the House’s three dozen or so competitive races.
“During the end game, the parties are spending as much as the candidates themselves,” said Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute.
Even so, Malbin noted, so many GOP candidates are behind in recent polls that not even the well-funded party committees can afford to expend resources in all of them.
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