And in North Carolina, Sen. Thom Tillis (R) also faces a nearly 3-to-1 disparity in ad funding to an opponent who served one term, ending 18 years ago, in the state Senate.
Democratic candidates, most of whom are relative neophytes, have tapped into the financial vein of liberal activists looking to punish GOP incumbents who have been President Trump’s allies.
Republicans had hoped that the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, following Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Sept. 18 death, would energize their conservative base.
It may have, but it also added more energy to what strategists call “fundraging” for Democratic candidates.
Advertising, on television and radio, is not always a reliable predictor of which campaign will win, but Republican and Democratic advisers focus on how much each candidate has for their own ad campaigns.
That’s because, under federal law, the candidates receive the best rates for advertising and benefit from the best time slots. Outside groups, from national party committees to super PACs, pay far heavier prices to place their ads in worse spots. In some media markets, every candidate dollar is worth up to five times as much as a super PAC dollar.
According to a Republican estimate of the 13 most contested races, Democratic candidates are spending $200 million on advertising in the final five weeks of the campaign. Republican candidates are spending just $106 million.
A Republican official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the GOP’s poor showing, provided the advertising estimates based on campaign filings. A Democratic strategist with access to that party’s filings confirmed the general ratio in each of the 13 races, although some totals varied slightly from the GOP estimate.
In six of those races, the Democratic candidate has an edge of at least 2-to-1 in the homestretch.
Alaska is the only state where Republicans hold an edge, albeit so small that the two candidates are at relative parity, according to strategists in both parties, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share spending details.
Even in Alabama, where national Democrats have abandoned Sen. Doug Jones (D), assuming he can’t win in such a conservative state, the incumbent has banked $6 million worth of ads, while Republican Tommy Tuberville has just $1.6 million worth of airtime in the final weeks of the race.
“I’m getting overwhelmed. LindseyGraham.com — help me. They’re killing me, moneywise. Help me,” Graham said.
It actually worked. Graham, who has been in the spotlight shepherding Barrett toward a Supreme Court confirmation vote, raised a stunning $28 million in the same quarter and has been reportedly pulling in about $1 million a day during the hearings.
While Harrison maintains an edge — $42.6 million in ad spending compared with $26.4 million for Graham — it’s a much better margin for Republicans than in most of the other competitive Senate battles.
But the cavalry has arrived for Republicans, in the form of the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that has collected massive, unlimited donations. From Sept. 1 through mid-October, SLF raised $142 million and, according to Democrats, steered $52 million into 10 races over the last two weeks.
In most states, Republicans are at overall parity in terms of advertising. “If the Sheldon Adelsons of the world keep writing $10 million or $15 million checks, they can quickly match the added value that candidate dollars have, and that makes a big difference in these toss-up races,” said Lauren Passalacqua, spokeswoman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “Our grass-roots network of small-dollar donors made these races competitive, and we’re relying on their support through the end.”
Democrats have their own well-stocked super PACs, but they cannot match what mega-rich donors like casino magnate Adelson are willing to donate to their GOP PACs.
Instead, a small-dollar army, giving directly to Democratic candidates, is what makes their campaigns competitive.
Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign served as a personality-driven march toward history, becoming an online fundraising phenomenon. Beto O’Rourke, whose Senate bid in 2018 became the equivalent of a social media reality show, set fundraising records by giving supporters an inside look at his campaign.
Among this crop of Democratic candidates, only Harrison and Mark Kelly (Ariz.), a former astronaut, have personal biographies that have driven their campaigns. Raised by his grandparents in rural South Carolina, Harrison went on to Yale and is now trying to become the first Black Democratic senator from the Deep South.
Otherwise, these candidates are running mostly as generic Democrats, with policy positions well within the ideological parameters of the party orthodoxy. They are pinning their GOP opponents to Trump’s continued efforts to gut the Affordable Care Act, a 2010 law that has grown more popular over the years, particularly during a global pandemic where health-care issues resonate even more with voters.
In Iowa, Theresa Greenfield was a local business executive in Des Moines who tried to run for a House seat in 2018 but faltered when an aide filed fake signatures to get on the primary ballot, ending her campaign. She raised almost $29 million in the third quarter, more than four times what Ernst raised.
But his Senate campaign was slow to launch, as he first needed to win a crowded Democratic primary in June. In the following quarter, Ossoff raised more than $21 million — matching in three months Perdue’s total fundraising over six years in the Senate.
That’s given Ossoff at least $13.5 million to pound the airwaves over the final five weeks, according to Democratic estimates, while Republicans say Perdue has reserved $7.6 million in ads.
Nowhere does the cash edge matter quite as much as North Carolina, where Democrat Cal Cunningham seemed to have a solid lead early this month.
Then he admitted to an affair with a married woman that appears to have taken place this year. Democrats and Republicans acknowledge Cunningham’s personal favorability ratings dropped.
But, three weeks after the scandal erupted, the Democrat remains more popular than Tillis, according to three GOP strategists who have reviewed the party’s internal polling.
And, they say, that’s because Cunningham raised more than $28 million in the third quarter, providing him an arsenal of funds to keep pounding away at Tillis.
Cunningham, whose race is still considered a toss-up, raised $6 million more in those three months than Tillis raised the last six years.
