HOUSTON -- Thara Narasimhan, who hosts a Hindu radio program in Houston, has already given $1,200 to a Democrat running against Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, a five-term congressman who won re-election in 2016 by more than 18 points. Her plans to donate even more bewilder friends.
"It's not the question of why I have to support a failing candidate," said Narasimhan, mingling at a fundraiser for Democrat Sri Kulkarni on a sweltering Texas summer night. "Unless you put some faith in it, you're not going to make it work."
The November midterms are on pace to shatter records for political spending. While more than $1 billion raised so far nationally is helping finance battlegrounds that are poised to decide control of Congress, restless donors aren't stopping there -- they're also putting cash into races and places they never have before to help underdog Democrats.
Examples include: a district home to the Dallas Cowboys' stadium and held by the GOP since 1983; the South Carolina district of outgoing U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford; and a reliably Republican Southern California district that President Donald Trump won by 15 points.
All are places where Democrats are outraising their Republican opponents -- a feat that, while perhaps not changing the conventional wisdom about their chances, is succeeding in giving their campaigns unusual viability. In Texas, 15 Democratic challengers running in Republican-held districts have so far raised at least $100,000. In 2014, only one cracked six figures.
The average cost of winning a House seat is more than $1 million. And in Texas, some candidates still lag substantially behind despite their early hauls in places where Republicans have been invincible.
But driving donors' eagerness to open their wallets to long-shot candidates, supporters say, is a mix of anti-Trump enthusiasm and optimism following upsets like Democrat Doug Jones' last year in a Senate race in Alabama. Campaigns, meanwhile, say donors are simply responding to finally having better candidates in historically lopsided districts that previously attracted only fringe contenders who made little effort to professionally fundraise or run hard.
At a crowded house party in suburban Austin for Democrat MJ Hegar, Jana Reeves found a seat on a kitchen bench that was a long way from her own Hill Country home that isn't even in Hegar's congressional district. Hegar has raised more than $1.7 million in large part due to a polished six-minute campaign ad called "Doors" that got attention online and enticed donors like Reeves to give her a hand.
"Even though it's hopeless? You know why?" Reeves said of the giving to Hegar and other Democratic challengers. "Even though maybe my paltry money can't do much, I still want to support these people in the deep red districts, because the Democrats [at party headquarters] aren't going to do it."
In few places is the surge of money more evident than in Texas. At the top of the ticket, Rep. Beto O'Rourke is outraising Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in a state where Democrats have not won a statewide race since 1994. Seven Democrats also outraised their GOP opponents between April and June in districts held by Republicans, bolstered by primary runoffs that forced campaigns to double down on fundraising.
Near Fort Worth, Democrat Jana Lynne Sanchez has raked in more than $358,000 and has campaigned through summer with more money than her heavily favored Republican opponent, Ronald Wright. They're both running to replace GOP Rep. Joe Barton, who represented the district for more than 30 years but abandoned plans for re-election after a nude photo of him circulated online.
A Section on 08/13/2018