Friday, October 15, 2010

Democrats Ahead of Republicans in Campaign Funds

The Wall Street Journal reports:
Overall, the Democratic party and its candidates still have more money at their disposal than their GOP rivals. In the closest 40 House and 12 Senate races, the Democratic candidate, on average, has twice as much money in the bank as the GOP opponent, according to the most recent fund-raising data. That's in part because many are incumbents who can more easily raise big money in advance of the election.
. . .
The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics said the Democratic Party and candidates had raised a total of $1.25 billion so far for the election. The comparable GOP figure is $1.1 billion.
Only in the spending of "outside groups" have Republicans won the funding battle.
In total, outside conservative groups—such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Action Network and American Crossroads—could spend more than $300 million on TV advertisements, campaign mailings and other efforts to elect Republicans to Congress this year. Outside Democratic groups, by contrast, plan to spend about $100 million on those activities. The largest labor unions say they will spend $200 million combined, but most of their focus will be on rallying union voters.

The spending by outside GOP groups is key because in the last three election cycles Democratic outside groups have substantially outspent their GOP rivals.
H/T Drudge Report

1 comment:

OregonGuy said...

I still cringe when I think about McCain's voter finance reform.
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