John Fetterman has been a fundraising star. Mark Reinstein/Shutterstock
If all that mattered in politics was money, the Democrats would have already won the 2022 elections. According to FEC data, Democratic candidates have outraised and outspent their Republican counterparts in both House and Senate races. In the handful of competitive Senate races around the country, the Democrats’ fundraising advantages are particularly stark. When you add up money raised by Senate candidates in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada — the four races rated “toss-ups” by Cook Political Report — the Democratic nominees have outraised their Republican counterparts $204 million to $107 million. Democratic House candidates are also outraising their competition.
Not that there’s unlimited money to go around. Democratic committees had excellent fundraising cycles, but because they have to spend on so many races, they have had to pull planned ad buys in swing districts as they narrow their focus to truly competitive elections. This doesn’t mean the DCCC and DSCC have too little money — these committees have routinely broken fundraising records this cycle — but that they have to make tough choices. (Republican committees have also pulled out of races they judged to be unwinnable.) Meanwhile, some reports suggest that giving to Democrat-aligned c4 groups engaged in voter mobilization is running well below expectations this year, although data on the flow of such dark money is not yet available.
But the bottom line is that the vast majority of Democrats running in important races aren’t really hurting for cash, and many of them have huge war chests compared to their GOP rivals. This applies not just to a lot of House and Senate races, but to many state-level contests. Gubernatorial candidates, and even candidates for secretary of state and attorney general positions, are flush with cash.
(For exceptions to this rule, check out Blue Tent’s candidate recommendations page. There are still a few candidates who need money!)
No rest after 2020
At the beginning of this cycle, there was some concern that the donors and activists who helped the Democrats retake the House in the 2018 midterms and defeat Donald Trump in 2020 would go “back to brunch,” i.e., there would be a significant enthusiasm drop-off and Democratic candidates would struggle to raise money. We started seeing evidence through 2021 that this wasn’t happening as financial reports came in from party committees and candidates. Then, in early 2022, ActBlue reported that 4.5 million donors had given $1.3 billion in 2021 — twice as much as they gave in 2017, after Trump’s election. More recently, ActBlue reported that donors gave nearly twice as much in Q3 of 2022 — $645 million — as they did during the same period of 2018. And the number of donors increased by more than 25%.
This upward trend in giving explains why candidates like Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly have raised amounts that dwarfed their conservative challengers’ war chests.
The state of near-constant alarm that characterized liberals in the Trump era has clearly not receded to any large extent. On the contrary, many donors fear that Republican election officials and state legislatures will unlawfully hand the 2024 presidential election to the GOP. The reversal of Roe v. Wade by the conservative justices on the Supreme Court gave Democrats more reason to mobilize — it endangered reproductive rights (and the health of pregnant people) in states with anti-abortion statutes, including purple states like Michigan and Arizona, and it reminded everyone of the high stakes of elections.
Of course, some money went to campaigns with little to no shot of winning — Marcus Flowers, running a largely hopeless campaign against rabid right-wing Georgia Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, has brought in $14 million. Some other candidates, mainly in the Senate, have raised so much money that they probably won’t be able to use it all effectively. But you’re always going to end up with some “wasted” fundraising. By and large, money actually went to the right places.
A down-ballot windfall
Composite data for state legislative races across the country is hard to come by, but money has poured in to down-ballot races and to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which focuses on state legislative races. Secretary of state and attorney general campaigns have also seen a huge influx of cash. Thanks to work done by the DLCC and organizations like the States Project, Run For Something, and Sister District Project — all relatively new groups primarily concerned with state and local races — more donors appear to be aware that giving to down-ballot candidates is a cost-effective way to enact change. These races are less expensive and have real power; thanks to the gridlocked nature of Congress, a lot of policy ends up being crafted at the state and city level.
Republicans are pretty good at raising money, too, of course, and GOP donors are also very energized. Though Democratic candidates have outspent their counterparts, the GOP has deployed more PAC money throughout the country, and in some key races, the independent expenditure money has come down in a deluge: DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney, for instance, has been targeted by millions in Republican spending, and may lose his New York congressional seat. The fundraising advantage held by some Republican committees and PACs mitigated the Democratic candidates’ fundraising edge.
But overall, recent trends bode well for Democrats going forward. They clearly have a large base of highly engaged donors who have helped them overcome the donations that GOP-aligned groups traditionally get from billionaires and fossil fuel corporations.