Campaign Diaries

Everything the DCCC does is bigger: They have more money, they raise money, they spend more money - and now they might be taking a larger loan as well! Evidently not satisfied with the (already breath-taking) number of GOP-held districts in which they are pouring money, the DCCC is now considering taking a $20 million loan to inject more resources in dozens of House seats. (The NRCC recently secured a $5 million line of credit to supplement their tragically meager cash on hand.)

Democrats know that they will not get an opportunity like this one in the upcoming cycles - at least not if Barack Obama wins the presidency. Wave elections are relatively rare, and seats like AL-02, KY-02 and MD-01 are unlikely to be competitive again any time soon if the GOP manages to hold them. It would be a shame for Democrats to miss out on seats because they did not have enough money to contest them, which is why the DCCC wants to make sure to go all-out in the staggeringly high number of Republican districts that currently look like they could be competitive.

Meanwhile, Republicans continue to have major financial problems. For one, the NRCC continues to scale back its ad buys, and which districts the committee thinks are no longer worthy of its attention tells us a lot about which seats the NRCC think are the least salvageable. The latest victim is Rep. Joe Knollenberg in MI-09, as the NRCC has pulled the plug on the incumbent for the next two weeks, canceling more than $300,000 worth of media time. The NRCC is still budgeting an ad blitz in the very last week of the campaign.

This creates a very perilous situation for Knollenberg: The DCCC has already spent more than $800,000 in this district, and the McCain campaign’s pull out means that Knollenberg has been abruptly deprived of the organizational structure he was planning to rely on.

As I have said before, committee spending is certainly not everything, since the candidates have their own war chests they can use. But that means that the burden is on the Republican contenders in districts that the NRCC is not playing in to display strong fundraising to be able to sustain Democratic advertisement. House candidates had to file their third quarter reports last night, so we now have a better idea of where the financial situation stood as of the end of September.

One district from which the NRCC has largely retreated is MN-03, a highly competitive open seat. As of the end of September, Ashwin Madia and Erick Paulsen had roughly equivalent amounts of cash on hand, and the Democrat had slightly outraised his opponent in the third quarter. Without the NRCC’s help, Paulsen will be hard pressed to stay afloat against the Democratic juggernaut.

In AZ-03, the fundraising numbers are truly stunning. Rep. Shadegg is as much of a conservative icon as there is in the House, and as of a month ago no one was paying attention to his challenger. Yet, Democrat Lord manage to outraise Shadegg in the third quarter! The incumbent Republican retained an edge in end-of-September cash on hand, but he runs the risk of being swamped by DCCC spending (which has reached more than $1 million in three weeks). Shadegg clearly did not think he was endangered this cycle, repeating the mistake of so many of his former Republican colleagues who didn’t see the threat coming until the final weeks of the campaign.

One final fundraising note on KS-02, a seat held by Democratic Rep. Nancy Boyda. This is perhaps the only highly competitive seat in the country on which the DCCC will not spend a dime, as Boyda said earlier in the summer that she did not want the national party to help her. And the bad news for her is that her opponent Lynn Jenkins raised three times as much as her - a very weak performance for an incumbent that insisted to be on her own financially. Boyda and Jenkins had roughly the same cash on hand as of the end of September, which means that this was the one district in the country that the GOP could have massively outspent the Democrat had the NRCC rushed in to Jenkins’ rescue… but KS-02 is one of those seats the NRCC has had to drastically scale back its ad reservations.

A big relief for Boyda, whose insistence to keep the DCCC at bay doesn’t sound as suicidal as it did over the summer.

That leaves us with FL-16, the week’s one bright spot for House Republicans and now so likely to fall in the GOP’s hands that Rep. Mahoney is reportedly considering dropping out of the race. Democrats cannot replace his name on the ballot (just as Republicans had not been able to replace Foley’s), and they would have even less than time the GOP had had in 2006 to introduce a new candidate to voters. If Mahoney stays on the ballot, the fact that the FBI is now investigating the payments he allegedly made to his mistress should be enough to do him in - or will it be the rumors of another affair? Today, The Palm Beach Post rescinded its endorsement of Mahoney and called on the district’s voters to choose Rooney. That editorial might not influence voters, but it is probably capture the mood of the district.

And could Republicans also make some unexpected progress in PA-12, a marginally blue seat held by high-profile representative Jack Murtha? The incumbent drew unwanted attention last week when he declared that Western Pennsylvania (where his district is located) is a “racist area.” Now, his opponent has launched an ad that will go up on air next week hitting Murtha for his remarks (Murtha has already been forced to issue an apology statement):

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tXrpYTGF-I"]