Democrats won ’13 money race

But Priebus-led GOP body handily outraised counterpart

Sunday, February 2, 2014

The Democratic Party’s national committees out raised their Republican counterparts last year and are approaching the 2014 elections with more money in the bank and President Barack Obama in his sixth year in office.

All told, the two political parties’ federal campaign committees raised $371 million for federal races and spent just shy of $300 million in a year in which two states had special Senate elections and six House districts had unplanned races. Adding in the two gubernatorial elections, the total haul grows to almost $450 million.

That sum doesn’t capture the millions raised and spent by the candidates themselves or the outside groups and advocacy organizations that plan to play a major role in 2014’s federal elections, which could tilt the balance of power in the Senate and perhaps the House. Thirty-six states are holding gubernatorial races.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which focuses on U.S. House races, took in $15 million more than the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2013, according to reports filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee surpassed the National Republican Senatorial Committee by $16 million.

Democrats will seek to use their money edge to fight a historical trend of the party of a second-term president losing seats in Congress during midterm elections. Republicans are seeking to make inroads in the Senate, where Democrats have a 55-45 advantage. Democrats need a net gain of 17 seats to wrest control of the House from Republicans.

A fundraising bright spot for the Republicans was their National Committee, led by Reince Priebus, which out raised the Democratic group by more than $15 million. It has about $4.5 million more in the bank and is debt-free. The Democratic National Committee still owes $15.6 million from the 2012 presidential race.

“We easily out raised the DNC in 2013, meaning we entered 2014 in a position of strength and on solid financial footing,” Priebus said in a statement. The Republicans took in $80 million, compared with $64.7 million for the Democrats.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised $75.8 million compared with $60.5 million pulled in by their Republican rivals.

The National Republican Congressional Committee benefited from casino magnate Steve Wynn and his wife, Andrea, who each contributed $21,100. The campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, also chipped in, transferring $32,400 from the Romney for President account.

Democrats also hold the fundraising advantage in the Senate, collecting $52.6 million through the senatorial campaign organization.

Republicans, who need a net gain of six seats to take back the chamber, raised $36.6 million for their National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Eight members of the Senate, including five Democrats, have said they would leave the chamber at the end of the current session of Congress. Of the 36 Senate elections in November, Democrats are the defending party in 21 of them, including seven in states Obama lost in 2012.

In the House, 31 members, including 19 Republicans, have announced that they won’t seek another term this year.

SUPER-PACS

Democrats have also invested in broad super political action committees, which can raise money and spend unlimited amounts as long as they don’t coordinate with candidates. The House Majority PAC raised $7.7 million with the help of Donald Sussman, the founder of Paloma Partners LLC and the husband of U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine. He gave$850,000.

The Senate Majority PAC raised $8.6 million in 2013, Federal Election Commission reports show, including six-figure checks from DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. co-founders Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP, gave the group $2.5 million.

“House Majority PAC’s record fundraising shows not only the level of disgust with this reckless Republican House,” said Andy Stone, a spokesman for the group, “but also that Democrats are prepared to fight back” against “big-spending right wing groups.”

The network of outside groups with close ties to Republican Party leaders raised just $7.2 million last year, suggesting some top donors remain on the sidelines.

Two of the groups - American Crossroads, a super-PAC, and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, a nonprofit advocacy organization - spent more than $300 million during the 2012 election campaign.

A third group, the Conservative Victory Project, a spinoff intended to help influence Republican primary elections, raised no money beyond a transfer from one of the other groups.

The two Crossroads groups raised $6.2 million last year, an official said. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super-PAC focused on Republican House races, reported raising $1.1 million for the year, according to a spokesman, but that figure does not include money raised by an affiliated nonprofit group, the American Action Network.

Meanwhile, conservatives seeking to pull the Republican Party to the right raised more money last year than the groups controlled by the party establishment.

They are being out raised by conservative groups like the Tea Party Patriots, which have been emboldened by activists’ fury over compromises that Republican leaders have struck with Democrats on federal spending and now have formidable amounts of cash to augment their grassroots muscle.

The money will allow conservative groups to spend more heavily on television ads, direct mail and on-the ground organizing in states like Alaska, Mississippi and South Carolina, where conservative and Tea Party-affiliated candidates are challenging incumbents or business-backed candidates.

Jenny Beth Martin, president of Tea Party Patriots, said the increase in fundraising would allow her group to expand the number of races it could be active in and finance more sophisticated and data-driven voter outreach.

“Not just the amount of money, but the volume of donations and how many people are so active and engaged in our organization - those two things combined will allow us to get involved in more races,” Martin said.

The battles are being watched closely, especially in Kentucky, where the Senate Conservative Fund and other conservative groups are backing a primary challenge to Sen. Mitch McConnell, the minority leader and one of the most powerful Republicans in Washington.

PRO-BUSINESS PAIRING

In an odd pairing, a Republican group promoting pro-business candidates to battle Tea Party-backed hopefuls in primary campaigns is being financed mostly by labor unions, one of the Democratic Party’s staunchest allies.

Defending Main Street, a super-PAC aligned with the Washington-based Republican Main Street Partnership, received more than 90 percent of its $845,000 in donations last year from labor groups.

Main Street is working alongside the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobby, to defend Republican candidates deemed more practical and economic-minded over the Tea Party-backed recruits.

The group is led by former Ohio Rep. Steve LaTourette, a Republican who had good relations with labor in Congress.

He voted for a minimum-wage increase, the 2009 auto bailout and a bill making it easier to organize a union.

That record and LaTourette’s new alliance with labor through the super-PAC is drawing scoffs from leaders of the small-government Tea Party movement.

“It’s not surprising that a liberal Republican who supported big labor’s agenda in Congress would raise money from his allies in big labor,” said Barney Keller, a spokesman for the Washington-based Club for Growth. “It ain’t exactly dogs and cats living together. It’s more like birds of a feather.”

Labor’s political activity has long tilted Democratic, though not exclusively so. In the 2012 campaign, unions gave $61.1 million to Democratic candidates and committees, compared with $6.1 million to Republicans, a ratio of 91 percent to 9 percent, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based group that tracks political giving.

Information for this article was contributed by Annie Linskey, Greg Giroux and Julie Bykowicz of Bloomberg News; by Philip Elliott of The Associated Press; and by Nicholas Confessore of The New York Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/02/2014