On Tuesday, we looked at the biggest non-party independent expenditures of 2006 in House races, and yesterday, we looked at expenditures of all kinds in 22 of the 23 races where Democratic challengers beat House Republican incumbents. Let’s pick up where we left off and take a look at the heartbreakers of 2006–34 competitive races where the Democratic candidate fell short of toppling an incumbent.
How do we define “competitive”? Well, in this study, I used a compromise of a number of metrics: races where either party committee made significant expenditures, races where the incumbent had a margin of victory under 15%, races with significant (usually $1M+) challenger expenditures, and races with significant independent expenditures. In most of these cases, there is significant overlap between those guidelines of “competitiveness”.
As usual, the “Spent” column indicates candidate expenditures, and “Other IEs” includes all independent expenditures made by PACs who filed with the FEC, but not 527 activity. I have also added a column on the far right indicating the incumbents’ margin of victory. In most cases I used Secretary of State numbers, but in a few races I relied upon CNN. All numbers were subject to rounding.
| District | Candidate | Spent | DCCC IEs | Other IEs | Incumbent | Spent | NRCC IEs | Other IEs | Victory Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AZ-01 | Simon | $1.5M | (none) | $128k | Renzi | $2.22M | $24k | $21k | R+8 |
| CA-04 | Brown | $1.65M | (none) | $53k | Doolittle | $2.35M | $356k | $10k | R+3 |
| CO-04 | Paccione | $1.93M | $348k | $237k | Musgrave | $3.18M | $1.81M | $16k | R+2 |
| CT-04 | Farrell | $2.94M | $1.64M | $183k | Shays | $3.72M | $1.66M | $2k | R+3 |
| FL-08 | Stuart | $992k | (none) | $5k | Keller | $1.66M | (none) | $102k | R+7 |
| IL-10 | Seals | $1.85M | $158k | $25k | Kirk | $3.48M | (none) | (none) | R+7 |
| IL-11 | Pavich | $526k | (none) | (none) | Weller | $1.84M | (none) | (none) | R+10 |
| IN-03 | Hayhurst | $691k | (none) | (none) | Souder | $634k | $225k | $1k | R+8 |
| KY-02 | Weaver | $878k | $331k | $104k | Lewis | $1.96M | $42k | $10k | R+11 |
| KY-04 | Lucas | $1.47M | $2.71M | $10k | Davis | $3.87M | $2.31M | $13k | R+8 |
| MI-08 | Marcinkowski | $551k | (none) | (none) | Rogers | $1.85M | (none) | $8k | R+12 |
| MI-09 | Skinner | $384k | (none) | (none) | Knollenberg | $2.78M | (none) | $3k | R+5 |
| NC-08 | Kissell | $683k | (none) | $200k | Hayes | $2.37M | (none) | $8k | R+0 |
| NE-01 | Moul | $979k | (none) | (none) | Fortenberry | $1.12M | (none) | $4k | R+17 |
| NE-02 | Esch | $411k | (none) | (none) | Terry | $962k | (none) | $1k | R+9 |
| NJ-07 | Stender | $1.89M | $103k | $3k | Ferguson | $2.92M | $48k | $16k | R+1 |
| NM-01 | Madrid | $3.32M | $2M | $1.17M | Wilson | $4.66M | $2.03M | $831k | R+1 |
| NV-03 | Hafen | $1.5M | $308k | $1.14M | Porter | $2.99M | $476k | $2k | R+2 |
| NY-03 | Mejias | $908k | (none) | (none) | King | $2.06M | (none) | $1k | R+12 |
| NY-25 | Maffei | $912k | $446k | $5k | Walsh | $1.77M | $375k | $51k | R+2 |
| NY-26 | Davis | $2.37M | $423k | $248k | Reynolds | $5.2M | $1.03M* | $32k | R+4 |
| NY-29 | Massa | $1.44M | (none) | $144k | Kuhl | $1.46M | $233k | $5k | R+4 |
| OH-01 | Cranley | $2M | $1.28M | $699k | Chabot | $2.95M | $1.46M | $21k | R+5 |
| OH-02 | Wulsin | $1.02M | (none) | $237k** | Schmidt | $750k | $333k | ? | R+1 |
| OH-12 | Shamansky | $1.64M | (none) | $3k | Tiberi | $2.97M | (none) | (none) | R+15 |
| OH-15 | Kilroy | $2.68M | $1.62M | $1.35M | Pryce | $4.63M | $1.81M | $82k | R+0 |
| PA-06 | Murphy | $4.04M | $3.01M | $222k | Gerlach | $3.46M | $3.89M | $52k | R+1 |
| PA-15 | Dertinger | $88k | (none) | (none) | Dent | $1.26M | (none) | (none) | R+10 |
| VA-02 | Kellam | $1.59M | $1.16M | $719k | Drake | $2.32M | $1.36M | $15k | R+3 |
| VA-10 | Feder | $1.54M | (none) | (none) | Wolf | $1.72M | (none) | $2k | R+16 |
| WA-05 | Goldmark | $1.15M | $321k | (none) | McMorris | $1.84M | (none) | $6k | R+12 |
| WA-08 | Burner | $2.98M | $2.02M | $727k | Reichert | $2.98M | $2.36M | $22k | R+3 |
| WV-02 | Callaghan | $614k | (none) | (none) | Capito | $3.07M | $25k | (none) | R+14 |
| WY-AL | Trauner | $927k | (none) | (none) | Cubin | $1.25M | $249k | $64k | R+0 |
| Total | $50.1M | $17.9M | $7.6M | $81.6M | $22.1M | $1.4M |
Notes: *This expenditure was made by the RNC, not the NRCC.
**Due to the labyrinthian backstory of Jean Schmidt’s travails in OH-02 from 2005-06, it’s difficult to sort out which expenditures apply to which period of her career: the special election of 2005, the primary battle last spring, and the 2006 general. I did my best to sort it out, but the picture isn’t entirely clear. For that reason, take these figures with a grain of salt.
Unsurprisingly, Republicans enjoyed more of a financial edge in these races; combining all expenditures, there was a nearly $30 million gap between Republican and Democratic expenditures in these 34 districts. The NRCC did not swamp out the DCCC in these districts by a large margin. NRCC/RNC buys amounted to 55% of the party committee expenditures, while the DCCC was responsible for the remainder. This is very close to the 56-44 NRCC ratio in the seats that the Democrats did pick up from incumbents.
Obviously, this list will bring up some woulda-coulda-shouldas: imagine what Larry Kissell or Eric Massa or Linda Stender could have accomplished with more DCCC IEs, for instance. But it should also highlight some badly underperforming incumbents for next time: Knollenberg in MI-09, Terry in NE-02, and Dent in PA-15, for instance, all posted very underwhelming returns given the financial uncompetitiveness of each of their races.
Oh, and speaking of Linda Stender, here’s one maddening note from last November’s results: if the 3176 votes that the “Withdraw Troops Now Party” candidate won in NJ-07 had been cast for Stender instead, she would have won by about 250 votes. Sigh.
On the weekend, I’ll conclude this series with expenditure round-ups for competitive open seats and the select districts where Democratic incumbents were on the defensive.
Those numbers would be good to have also as the races was actually close than many of the more high profile races.
are particularly upsetting because of the chacter of the districts. NE 2 is very red, PA 15 MI 9 were basic ties in the presidential. I tried to bang on the drumb for them but with no avail.
Several thoughts on this one:
The under-the-radar aspect of this race (it was never rated as competitive by any analyst) kept most of the PAC money away, but it’s also worth pointing out that Esch explicitly refused to take any PAC contributions. Independent expenditures by PACs in this race probably would have undercut Esch’s message there.
I don’t know if money from the DCCC would have helped. We saw what nationalizing the race in NE-03 did – Smith pulled it out because he was a Republican, plain and simple. Then again, NE-02 isn’t quite as red as NE-03.
The major problem was fundraising. Esch didn’t have nearly as much money as Thompson did in 2004, but he had a ground operation that blew hers away. (Thompson actually underperformed Kerry in 2004).
This is probably one of the best chances for a rematch in the country, and probably one of the best opportunities for the netroots to really make an impact, because of the emphasis on individual donors.
I love your breakdowns–great work!
In WV-02 it was maddening to have a strong candidate but no air cover whatsoever. The power of incumbency was quite strong and Shelley Moore Capito got essentially a free ride from the local media.
We’re trying to change that at West Virginia Blue, keeping a watch on her every move the whole two year cycle: every dollar of fund-raising, every vote, every pander, and each day she lacks accomplishment for her district.
Your table does reinforce one thing I’m particularly proud of about WV-02 last November. She was running scared–including holding fund-raisers in DC the last two weeks before the election. We forced her to raise and spend $3M to buy her re-election.
The strong grass-roots, contest every race effort (powered in part, I believe, by a “Dean money” hired 50-state organizer) of WV-02 tied up Republican money and resources that would have otherwise gone to other races. Also, as Capito is contemplating an ’08 run against Rockefeller, I’m sure wishing she had that last $1M she spent still sitting in the bank.
on this list should be considered competitive based on last year’s expenditures:
CA-04 – D outspent by $1 million, which only managed to buy R 3%. If corruption issues remain, Doolittle is in trouble.
CO-04 – D outspent by almost $2 million, which only purchased R 2%. Musgrave can be beat.
IL-10 – D outspent by about $1.7 million, which only purchased R 7% against an inexperienced candidate who many believed was a carpetbagger. We need a different candidate for this district. Kirk can be beat in a Presidential year, especially if this seat is the focus of DCCC expenditures.
IL-11 – D outspent by about $1.3 million, which purchased R 10% against an inexperienced candidate. Pavich should consider running again. The DCCC should consider funding a candidate in this race during a Presidential year. Lots of grassroots support for Pavich.
MI-09 – D outspent by $2.4 million, which purchased R 5%. Skinner could have won this seat, but many refused to support her. Knollenberg is clearly on borrowed time.
NC-08 – D outspent by $1.5 million, which purchased R approximately 300 votes. Hayes is also on borrowed time, and Kissell will run again. The DCCC should consider funding Hayes’s unconventional campaign strategies.
NE-02 – Esch only outspent D by $500,000. But neither candidate invested in this race. Grassroots and late DCCC money could make the difference in this race, as it did with Boyda. But the DCCC should enter in the last week with a media blitz.
NJ-07 – D outspent by $984,000. NJ-07 may become another NM-01 or CT-04, but heavy investment one more cycle is certainly worth the gamble.
NY-25 – D outspent by $800,000, and R won by 2%. This should be a top DCCC target.
OH-15 – $1.9 million purchased Pryce 1,000 votes. This must be a top DCCC target, especially as Kilroy was Pryce’s only real competition for many cycles. Pryce will not be able to raise such funds now that she is not in the Republican leadership.
PA-15 – D oustpent by $1.18 million, but R could not clear 55%. This is an obvious target.
WV-02 – D outspent by $2.4 million, but R could not clear 60%. Aggressive recruitment and fundraising must begin now for this district. We missed a great opportunity.
WY-AL – D outspent by about $500,000, which secured about 1,300 votes for R. Cubin may not even clear the primary next cycle, and the Presidential race may make it harder for any D to win this seat. But it should be a target, as it seems that both the incumbent and the NRCC take this seat for granted.