Democrats in Trump Districts Are Outraising Republicans in Biden Districts

[brooklynite]

Time

Rare is the member of Congress who represents a district that voted for the other party’s nominee for President. Gerrymandering has rendered those political survivors harder to find than unicorns while reducing the truly competitive House districts to so few they fit on a single whiteboard in strategists’ offices. But it’s those oddities that draw intrigue and, with that, campaign cash. And looking at the money flowing to those 22 lawmakers, a telling trend emerges that may indicate something important about 2024.

In the first three months of this year, the official campaign committees for the five Democrats who represent districts that voted for Donald Trump in 2020 are outraising the 17 Republicans from Joe Biden-backing districts by a more than two-to-one margin. (An 18th Republican, George Santos, began this Congress as a political unicorn but became an Icarus and ex-House member. His seat is now in Democrats’ hands.)

Every single day of the last three months, these mismatched Democratic lawmakers in the House raised, on average, more than $12,000 in hard dollars for their campaign, according to a new TIME analysis of records filed to the Federal Election Commission this week. (This analysis is ignoring super PACs, joint fundraising efforts with state or national parties, and independent and advocacy groups.) Republicans, who are enduring an incredibly narrow and fractious majority in the House, brought in an average of $5,200 daily for their campaigns in the last quarter. Put bluntly: this doesn’t suggest the most vulnerable Republicans are successfully convincing donors to stock the war chests.

In terms of total dollars that donors have handed over, each of these Democratic lawmakers on average have about a $1 million head start over their Republican counterparts. (Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright’s $280,000 personal loan only explains part of this disparity; Republican Rep. David Schweikert similarly loaned himself about $240,000, and Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, an Oregon Republican, has loaned her campaign more than $880,000.)

I trust this won't "agitate" anyone.....

[Barry Markson]

1. 2016 spending by candidate

Real close to being meaningless.




https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16

[brooklynite]

2. What does this have to do with House fundraising?

[Barry Markson]

3. Fund raising doesn't equal success.

It's a meaningless metric.