Of all the feedback we get about our House Race Ratings project, one of the more common questions sent our way is the reasoning behind our placing of North Carolina’s 8th District in the “Lean Republican” column. After all, SSP is the only outfit which does not rate this race as a “Tossup”.
Roll Call has an article (with the unfortunate title of “Kissell of Death?”) that contains a few tidbits that might best explain our reticence:
Kissell, who lost to Hayes by 329 votes in 2006 when he raised little money and had no help from national Democrats, initially set out to raise more than $1.2 million this cycle, according to his campaign. But as of July 1, the social studies teacher had raised just $676,000 and, despite not having a primary opponent, he had burned through two-thirds of his campaign cash, leaving his campaign with about $230,000 in the bank going into the homestretch.
Kissell has spent nearly two-thirds of the money that he’s raised so far this cycle, but where has the bulk of that money gone? The answer might surprise you:
[Kissell spokesman Thomas] Thacker pushed back on suggestions that the campaign budgeted poorly or paid too much for political consultants and fundraising expenses, which have gobbled up more than $250,000 this cycle.
That’s a lot of dough to spend… to not raise much dough.
Now, Kissell still does have a lot of things going for him, including a very active ground game and the Obama campaign’s aggressive turnout efforts in North Carolina. The DCCC has also started to make good on their pledge to support Kissell; the committee pumped $120,000 in media buys here earlier this week. Kissell still could pull this one out based on these factors, but we’re not especially thrilled by Kissell’s inability to play much defense against Robin Hayes’ ad wars.
In a conversation here with a Kissell supporter some months ago I raised the question of money. The response was that there wasn’t a major population center near by and therefore money wasn’t the issue it would be elsewhere. The emphasis instead was on the ground game, which Kissel has been working on since the beginning of the ’06 election and which Hayes envied.
I’ve no way to assess the validity of these claims. It is, however, puzzling to someone who has financially supported Kissell monthly for more than a year about the obvious failure to generate more money internally. I’ve also wondered why in such a winnable race this cmpaign hasn’t excited more interest among net roots. Clearly this would have helped.
Yes, it is a poor area of NC, but still financial development needs to be a significant part of any political campaign. I do wonder if the Kissell campaign can depend almost entirely on the DCCC for its support.
if not in 2008 then in 2012 it will as long as Bev Perdue wins.
This district was meant for a Bob Etheridge or Mike McIntyre type Democrat (which Kissell is) and Hayes stole it away. If we don’t get it this time, when the new maps are draw they’ll pull some more Democratic voters from Charlotte and stick some of the republicans in Cabarrus county in Mel Watt’s district or in the awful 9th district which is already hopelessly republican. Or they can make the 6th even more republican (Greensboro extended-based district) by putting some of Montgomery and Stanly county in the 6th and then taking some african-american voters out of Mel Watt’s district in the 12th and putting them in the 8th and then shifting Mel’s district to being a more triad based district rather than a combined triad-charlotte district.
Lot’s of possibilities there.