In previous midterm cycles, particularly when blue waves were building on the electoral horizon, tensions flared between Democratic Party campaign operatives who decide where to steer money in the final weeks and progressive activists who accuse them of starving their favorite candidates.
In 2006, several progressive House candidates—California’s Jerry McNerney, New Hampshire’s Carol Shea-Porter, New York’s John Hall, North Carolina’s Larry Kissell—defeated favorites of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in their primaries. The DCCC, lacking confidence in their general election prospects, gave them little to no support in the general election. All but Kissell won anyway, allowing their progressive boosters to charge the DCCC with political incompetence.
In 2018, progressives were steamed that the DCCC didn’t back Nebraska’s Kara Eastman, New York’s Dana Balter, and Texas’ Mike Siegel robustly, all of whom fell short.
This time around, such tensions are hard to find, as the DCCC, the House Majority PAC associated with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and other party-affiliated political action committees are spending big on progressive, populist candidates in the nation’s toughest House and Senate battlegrounds.
Democratic Party committees have spent at least $10 million in 25 House districts, and more than $20 million in just three districts. One features a big progressive gamble: Michigan’s 7th District nominee William Lawrence. A Democratic Socialists of America member until recently, with a history of controversial comments, Lawrence won his primary with a plurality as moderates split between two rivals. Now he’s up against a freshman Republican in a district with Cook Political Report Partisan Voting Index score of R+0 (meaning a Republican in that district can expect a vote share no different than the national popular vote). DCCC officials probably aren’t thrilled they have to spend so much to flip the seat, since every other R+0 district has been deemed at least “Lean Democratic” by Cook’s handicappers. But they are spending, not complaining.
California’s 22nd, the heavily Latino Central Valley district which moderate Republican David Valadeo has represented most of the last 14 years, is a prime Democratic target. It’s in the top five races for spending.
The DCCC pick to challenge Valadeo was elbowed out in California’s top-two primary system by the Bernie Sanders-backed Randy Villegas. Nevertheless, party committees have spent nearly $19 million to support Villegas, $7 million more than Republicans have spent on Valadeo.
Other Bernie-backed candidates in the Democrats’ top 25 best-financed districts include Brian Poindexter (Ohio’s 7th District), Bob Brooks (Pennsylvania’s 7th District), and Rebecca Cooke (Wisconsin’s 3rd District), though the DCCC did not oppose these candidates in primaries. Democratic committees are outspending Republicans in all three. The reddest of these districts is Poindexter’s, with a PVI of R+5, but his opponent is the incumbent Max Miller, whose ex-wife has accused him of horrific domestic abuse.
Matt Dunlap in Maine’s 2nd District was endorsed in the primary by Our Revolution, the group founded by Sanders, and defeated a DCCC favorite. The rural Maine district has been represented by the retiring, right-leaning Democrat Jared Golden, yet, having consistently voted for Donald Trump in presidential elections, it has a PVI of R+4. Many political observers believed a progressive couldn’t win there, and wrote Dunlap off after his primary victory. But Democratic Party committees have invested $10 million so far, putting the district in their top 25, although Republican committees have spent about $1 million more.
Robust Democratic establishment spending on progressives doesn’t stop at the House. With control of the Senate on the line, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Senate Majority PAC associated with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and other committees are not freezing out Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed and Maine’s Troy Jackson, two Sanders-blessed candidates who helped sideline Schumer’s primary preferences (albeit, in Jackson’s case, in circuitous fashion).
Three other Senate candidates have received more than $100 million in party-affiliated committee support: Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, Texas’ James Talarico and Iowa’s Josh Turek. But just under $100 million is El-Sayed. In lightly populated Maine (less than half that of Iowa), the committees have spent $52 million for Jackson—the sixth-largest amount in the Senate Democratic field.
In many of the House races where Democrats spend big, they are outspending Republicans. Perhaps because Republicans see control of the House as a lost cause, despite the heavy Democratic outlays in the aforementioned five Senate contests, Republicans are spending the most—though only by a smidge in Iowa. In Texas, Republican committees have spent a gobsmacking $307 million, plus $254 million in Ohio, $172 million in Michigan, and $81 million in Maine.
But as I explained earlier this month, Republican dollars haven’t gone as far on the airwaves as Democratic dollars: “the individual Democratic candidates are attracting more campaign cash than their Republican opponents. In turn, Republicans largely rely on political action committees, which function independently of the candidates, to carry the campaign load. Under federal communications law, in the 60 days before a general election, ‘the charges made for the use of any broadcasting station by … a legally qualified candidate’ will be ‘the lowest unit charge of the station.’” In turn, regarding broadcast TV ad spending in September, “when it came to how often broadcast ads air, the Republican [spending] advantage nearly vanished.”
Democrats are the bigger spenders in a few Senate races. In Mississippi, where District Attorney Scott Colom is trying to pull off an upset against incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, Democratic committees are outspending their Republican counterparts nearly 8 to 1, though, as is typical for a rural state, the dollar amounts are small. In Kansas, bullish Democrats are backing megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton with $53 million, nearly doubling Republican support for incumbent Roger Marshall. And in South Carolina, Democratic committees have kicked in nearly $18 million versus about $17 million in GOP money.
Granted, the Democratic establishment isn’t cleaning out its bank account for Florida’s Angela Nixon, who has become a bit of a progressive cause célèbre after the meagerly financed DSA member won an upset in the primary and she followed it up with a stretch of punchy interviews. Sanders and Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez have campaigned with her, yet party-affiliated committees have only plunked down $12 million, a pittance for a state with 24 million residents. However, considering all the other money party leaders have plowed into other progressive campaign, the reticence is more fairly attributed to Nixon’s lagging poll numbers and Florida’s expensive media markets than ideology.
The amounts invested in El-Sayed and Jackson show they have not been downgraded in priority because of their progressive pedigrees or tenuous relationship with Schumer. Of course, if all of the above candidates win, the expanded Democratic big tent will no doubt house many a policy quarrel in the next Congress. But for now, the establishment and the insurgents are in harmony.
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