@no1marauder said
Unsurprisingly, you're just making s**t up; the Republicans actually outspent the Democrats in the 2010 Congressional elections: https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/index.php?cycle=2010
Between the House and Senate races the Democrats spent $921 million, the Republicans $959 million.
The Democrats did significantly outspend the Republicans in 2018, raising twice as ...[text shortened]... rom individual donations. https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/index.php?display=T&type=A&cycle=2018
https://www.politico.com/story/2010/10/dems-getting-outspent-not-so-fast-044216?tab=most-read
From your own Politico
To hear top Democrats tell it, the party is being wildly outgunned this year in the fight for campaign cash as Republicans rely on outside groups to funnel money to GOP contenders.
But the numbers tell a different story.
It’s true that conservative third-party groups are outspending their Democratic rivals. But the Democrats still have a sizable cash advantage in their party committees – making this year’s elections a lot more of a fair fight than Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi let on.
So far, the latest figures show that the Democratic Party machinery has outraised its Republican counterpart in this campaign cycle by almost $270 million.
And even when outside spending on television advertising and direct mail is added to the mix, Republicans still haven’t closed the gap.
The money race totals come to $856 million for the Democratic committees and their aligned outside groups, compared to $677 for their Republican adversaries, based on figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Included in that total: conservative groups have spent $169 million on ads attacking Democratic House and Senate candidates, compared to $80 million by liberal-leaning groups, based on figures as of Tuesday morning.
Of course, plenty more will be spent in this final week of the campaign.
The GOP-leaning outside groups have vowed to invest about $325 million this cycle, a sum that could be difficult to achieve with just seven days to go to Election Day. Liberal groups and unions also have pledged tens of millions of dollars more in spending.
But the David-and-Goliath tone of some Democratic messaging hardly reflects the party’s own financial strength and ability to defend itself, at least tactically.
“When you look at the national party committees coupled with the state party committees, the Democrats are whopping the Republicans,” said Dave Levinthal, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics.
“It’s when you get into the realm of outside spending that you see the opposite is very much true, with conservative-leaning groups effectively obliterating the left-leaning groups,” he said.
Hari Sevugan, the Democratic National Committee spokesman, said his party’s complaint with the outside groups isn’t just about the fundraising totals, but about how the money comes in.
“If you take in the sum what will be spent by the candidates, the outside groups, and the party, there will certainly be a lot of money on both sides,” said Sevugan.
But the decision by some of the GOP groups to organize under tax laws allowing them to keep their donors secret raises the question of “who will these candidates be beholden to in the end?” he added.
Sevugan said Democrats “may never know” if they are outspent in the 2010 midterms because some of the conservative outside groups, such as Crossroads GPS, organized under a tax code that will never require them to make a full public accounting of their activities and donors. Some of those groups are spending money on turnout operations, which is much more difficult to track than advertising.
“Maybe our party structure is in better shape than their party structure, but this isn’t an exercise where we can silo off party structure. Their outside groups are pouring money into this at a faster pace than ours,” he added.
For instance, federal candidates on both sides also could benefit from money being spent on gubernatorial races from the Republican Governors Association ($60 million raised this year) and the Democratic Governors Association ($27 million.)
And then there are individual candidates. One Republican running for governor, Meg Whitman in California, alone has spent $163 million in her race against Democrat Jerry Brown. Florida Republican Rick Scott is spending more than $60 million in personal and family money in his race against Alex Sink.
According to data at the Center for Responsive Politics, the Democratic committees – including state party coffers – raised $776 million thus far and had $90 million in cash for the final month, compared to $508 million collected by the Republicans who had $55 million available for the last lap of campaigning.
For now, the official party committees are still dominating the ad wars nationally. The National Republican Congressional Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee currently rank as the top spenders on independent advertising. The NRCC has doled out $44.5 million compared to the DCCC’s $42 million.
Democrats are increasingly stepping up their charges that conservatives effectively spent their way to big gains in Congress and in the statehouses through the spending by outside groups.
Mike Bloomberg
15 Jan '20 12:332 edits
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