Big campaign bucks don’t always spell victory
Expectations for massive fund-raising in the 2012 election may obscure one point — big bucks don’t always lead to victory. And in fact, too much spending — especially in the form of too many advertisements — can turn off voters.
There have been several notable examples of heavy, but ultimately fruitless, outspending in recent elections.
In the 2010 midterms, Republican Meg Whitman, the billionaire former chief executive of eBay, spent $140 million of her own money, or about $43 per vote,to campaign for governor against Democrat Jerry Brown. Brown spent $7.50 per vote to defeat her by 12 percentage points, in a race that was a rare bright spot for Democrats in elections that saw most Republicans sweep to victory.
Another Republican, wrestling executive Linda McMahon, also spent lots of her own money last year — lending her campaign about $50 million — or about $100 per vote — in losing by 12 percentage points to her Democratic rival Richard Blumenthal.
But big spenders don’t always lose. Jon Corzine, a liberal Democrat who made a fortune as a Wall Street executive, spent $60 million of his own money as he won his U.S. Senate race in 2000, his first run for public office. That race broke the previous record, set by Republican Michael Huffington as he lost his bid for a U.S. Senate seat in California in 1994.
Michael Malbin, executive director of Washington’s Campaign Finance Institute, said Huffington’s race was infamous because his poll numbers dropped as his spending on advertisements increased. “There are plenty of examples of people who spend way more and lose,” Malbin said. “… In the end, the voters will decide which message they like.”
Despite their reputation as the wealthier party, it is by no means always Republicans who spend more money in losing campaigns.
Democrats lead on fundraising for 2010, but the gap may be closing
If new campaign dollars were votes, Democrats would be leading Republicans in the early returns for the 2010 congressional elections by about 7 percentage points overall. But that’s with Republicans closing the gap and eight months to go before Election Day.
A report by the Federal Election Commission says the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee pulled in $183 million in new donations during 2009, the first half of the 2009-2010 congressional election cycle.
That put Democrats about 9 percent ahead of their Republican counterparts – the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee – which raised $168.6 million together.
But Republicans may be gaining momentum: committee fund-raising figures that also include the month of January show the Democrats with a $202 million 13-month total and a lead narrowing to 7 percentage points, vs. the GOP’s $188.7 million tally.
The Washington Post, which reported on the FEC numbers in its Thursday editions, notes that Democrats have had difficulties given gridlock in Congress and President Barack Obama’s diminished popularity. Democrats are also the object of unhappiness on Wall Street over the prospects for financial and healthcare reforms.
But the FEC figures show the Democratic Party is still pulling in money from big donors, with $37.3 million from individuals who gave $10,000 or more during 2009. Republicans could boast only $15.6 million from the high-end crowd.
Precisely the reason that campaign finance must be overhauled. When corporations can enter politics with nearly unlimited financial resources they can buy the legislation that they need to secure a monopoly in any market. The corporate takeover of healthcare reform is just the latest example.
