Money Money Money
For the first time in living memory, the Democratic political committees are outraising the Republican ones. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are crushing the RSCC and the RCCC, both in funds raised and cash on hand. And, for Republicans in Congress, it gets worse, while overall fundraising by the campaign committees is almost even, that’s because Republican National Committee continues to maintain its historic fundraising edge over the DNC (though by one of the smallest margins in its history). The DNC and RNC money, however, gets eaten up almost entirely by the candidate at the top of the ticket in Presidential years, which means that the Republican candidates for lower offices will have far less financial help than they had in 2006, when they got crushed by poorly-financed Democrats. The anemic fundraising also appears to have a higher than usual number of Republican incumbents considering retirement rather than face a difficult campaign season and possible defeat, while recruitment of quality candidates by Republicans has so far been embarrassingly poor. (Democrats haven’t been overly successful in enlisting top candidates either, however, so it may simply be that the campaign season is young.)
There is also the possibility that a popular Democratic candidate for President could be so extraordinarily well-financed that he can lock in an electoral victory early enough to advertise heavily in solidly Republican states, in an attempt at best to run up the score and at worst to give competitive Democrats in Republican states a better chance of winning House and Senate seats, and legislative majorities in the states. At the moment Democrats have more than $120 million more in cash on hand than the Republicans; the Democrats have yet one more edge on the Democrats—not only are they raising funds more successfully, but they’re spending money more frugally. Since the year began, the Democrats have spent less than $70 million, while the Republicans have spent over $100 million. At this time, Democrats appear to be more adept than Republicans--the party of business--at every level of money management.
