Money does not buy elections. But it helps a great deal. More often than not, the person who raises the most money wins
This doesn’t mean more money causes people to win. There are a number of reasons why causality isn’t slam dunk. Perhaps people give more money to candidates who they know will win to increase their influence. Perhaps more organized and motivated candidates raise more money, but it is the quality which is the primary driver. But still, if you had to chose between being the person with more money, you’d take it every time.
Which is why the 2020 cycle is shaping up to be absolutely bizarre. Let’s start with the parties themselves — DNC vs. RNC.
Yikes, that’s probably not good. But probably best to put it into context by looking at all committee fundraising arms, and compare to the Dems.
A guide to understanding this — DNC (Dems) and RNC (GOP) are the respective party committes. Each party also has a committee for senate (DSCC,NRSC) and house (DCCC,NRCC) races. For every category the Dems lead so far leading up to 2024. The ratios are as follows:
DNC/RNC: 2.6X
DSCC/NRSC: 1.4X
DCCC/NRCC: 1.25X
Dems have between 25% to 160% more cash on hand at the end of 2023. Interestingly this is also true of candidates — for example Democratic Senate candidates are outpacing their GOP rivals, despite the fact that the Senate map is horrific for the party. The House has much more mixed results on a candidate basis.
The big question is, what is happening with Republicans?
The Trump Factor
One reason for Republican underperformance so far is the candidate who won’t take no for an answer, Donald Trump. His fundraising operation is much stronger than anyone else in the GOP, to the point where it may be cannibalizing from other candidates. But there is a major problem with this, because Trump’s mounting legal bills are being paid by that largesse.
The situation is basically this, Trump is better able to pull money into his campaign than any other Republican, but he is spending that money on lawyers and other legal fees. What’s worse for the GOP is that this is a self-reinforcing cycle. The worse Trump’s legal condition gets, the more money he brings in from his followers.
The additional problem for the GOP is that the presidency, more often than not, boils down to a two-person race. And on that metric, GOP has another problem: Biden is raising almost as much as all GOP candidates combined:
The other lens to look at the campaigns is their fundraising vs. burn rate: Until the last quarter of the cycle, you want the first one to be bigger than the last one. But for Trump, that’s not what’s hapening right now, he’s spending money faster than he is bringing it in:
But Trump isn’t the only one problem for the GOP. There is another.
The McCarthy Factor
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was the top fundraiser for the House GOP. He set records. But he also became the first House Speaker in history to be vacated. This has hit GOP candidates hard, though its effect is only starting to be felt.
The jury is still out on how the new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will do, but early comparisons aren’t good.
Super PACs aren’t a good plan B
Sure, you may think. The candidates and committees might not be on the ball, but can’t rich people throw infinite money at the problem? Yes, but that’s not as helpful as you might think. This detail from 2022 illustrates why:
Football fans in Las Vegas tuning into the Raiders game on Oct. 2 had to sit through multiple political ads, including one from Nevada’s endangered Democratic senator and another from a Republican super PAC trying to defeat her.
The ads were each 30 seconds — but the costs were wildly different.
The Democratic senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, paid $21,000. The Republican super PAC paid $150,000.
That $129,000 disparity for a single ad — an extra $4,300 per second — is one sizable example of how Republican super PACs are paying a steep premium to compete on the airwaves with Democratic candidates, a trend that is playing out nationwide with cascading financial consequences for the House and Senate battlefield. Hour after hour in state after state, Republicans are paying double, triple, quadruple and sometimes even 10 times more than Democrats for ads on the exact same programs.
One reason is legal and beyond Republicans’ control. But the other is linked to the weak fund-raising of Republican candidates this year and the party’s heavy dependence on billionaire-funded super PACs.
Political candidates are protected under a federal law that allows them to pay the lowest price available for broadcast ads. Super PACs have no such protections, and Republicans have been more reliant on super PACs this year because their candidates have had trouble fund-raising. So Democrats have been the ones chiefly benefiting from the mandated low pricing, and Republicans in many top races have been at the mercy of the exorbitant rates charged by television stations as the election nears.
The issue may seem arcane. But strategists in both parties say it has become hugely consequential in midterm elections that will determine which party controls Congress.
If the GOP can’t correct course right now, we are likely to see a replay of this problem in 2024. Early weakness in GOP fundraising at the start of 2024 means they may not be ready to get the best rates for ads early on. Their dependence on Super PACs will increase, but how that money goes will decrease. Whether you want to blame the candidate committees, Trump’s legal woes, or the House GOP seppuku of Kevin McCarthy, they are not well positioned as of this writing for 2024.
