With the midterm elections a week away, candidates in California are donating their fundraising dollars to candidates in districts where the race is more heated.
Long-standing congressional incumbents are not just using their name recognition for support – some who face no serious threat of losing their reelections are dipping into their own fundraising bank accounts and allocating the money to other candidates in their party.
With a governing majority at stake in the Nov. 7 elections, both major parties could be sizing up which races they have the best shot at winning up until the last few days, subsequently putting more money into those races, said Barbara Sinclair, a UCLA political science professor who specializes in the U.S. Congress.
“I would say that it’s 75-80 percent that the Democrats take back the House of Representatives and 50-50 for the Senate,” Sinclair said. “So it would make sense that each party would focus on the Senate.”
The strategy of funneling money from one candidate to another helps narrow the gap in certain races, but it also means that citizens who donate money to a particular candidate could see that money go to help another party member’s campaign.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has represented the 30th District, which includes the Westwood area, since 1975. He thought to be in little danger of losing his seat in the House, given that he won reelection in 2004 with 71 percent of the vote.
Waxman, like many long-tenured representatives, has received significant financial contributions due to his broad base – contributions that have been routed to other candidates’ campaigns.
Waxman has contributed $350,000 to Democratic candidates in congressional and statewide elections and another $200,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Waxman spokeswoman Karen Lightfoot said.
“It seems to me that the national races have taken the oxygen out of the California races because they aren’t that competitive,” Sinclair said.
And Waxman does have a stake in this election – as the ranking minority member of the Committee on Government Reform, he could become its chairman if the Democratic Party wins the majority of seats on Nov. 7, Sinclair said.
“I don’t even remember the name of the guy running against Waxman, and I’m a political science professor,” Sinclair said. “So that should tell you what sort of fundraising has been put into that guy’s campaign.”
“That guy” is David Nelson Jones, the 26-year-old Republican challenger for the 30th District.
Now running in his first ever political campaign, Jones said he was encouraged to run by the California Republican Party and got the 40 required signatures from registered republicans in the last 48 hours. After an uncontested primary, Jones has raised $50,000 in five months of campaigning.
“We’re proud of the money that has been raised, going to our party’s base and getting not only money but volunteer work,” Jones said. “But the work that a campaign does is driven by fundraising, and in (the 30th District) it’s always tough for a Republican to run.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee donated $1600 for the mandatory filing fees, while the NRCC has used $150,000 that was dispersed into his campaign budget.
Jones said the fundraising support he has received is much less than what the Republican Party has poured into three other campaigns that could help keep the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
“It makes sense,” Jones said. “I am mainly running to make sure there’s an open marketplace of ideas, and the seat doesn’t go uncontested. It’s a tough seat for a Republican to win.”
In the 4th District, incumbent John Doolittle, R-Calif., is running against Democratic challenger Charlie Brown.
The state’s 11th District pits incumbent Rep. Richard Pompo, R-Calif., against Democrat Jerry McNerney.
The 50th-District race between incumbent Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., and Francine Busby, D-Calif., will fill the seat left by former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Cunningham resigned after it was revealed he brokered several defense contract deals with the corporation that bought his San Diego suburban home, the San Diego Union Tribune reported.
In all three of these close races, the Republican incumbent has raised more money that the Democratic challenger in the third quarter, according to the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
While the fundraising that each of these candidates has done will surely help as the election draws near, it does not truly reflect the money that is poured into each campaign.
For instance, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is running for her third term in office, and had raised $5.7 million by the end of 2005. Considering the unlikelihood of losing her seat to Republican challenger Richard Mountjoy, Feinstein is another incumbent in a position to use her ample fundraising to try and deliver her party a majority in Congress, Sinclair said.