“Democratic senators have contributed far more from their personal campaign accounts to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) than Republicans have given its GOP counterpart, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), fundraising reports due out today show,” reports The Hill.
Snippets:
- “Usually, the majority party has a marked fundraising advantage because it controls the legislative agenda.”
- “[There’s a] long-standing difficulty in getting GOP senators to give to the party”
- “More significant than the Democrats’ $1.7 million advantage is that they now have $15.2 million on hand after the first six months of the year, while Republicans have $8 million”
- “One reason for the disparity is that Democrats were able to pay off their debt from 2004 before the start of the new cycle, a feat accomplished because of the efforts and gifts of individual senators, such as Kerry.”
We Democrats really are better with financial planning and budgeting for the future, aren’t we.
It’s a good thing. First-term Sen. Maria Cantwell of Wash. state — Senate site; campaign site — will need all the funding she can get:
Don’t miss the screenshot of a possible McGavick spoof site, below:
Switzerblog diaried about this site too: “WA-SEN: mikemcgavick.com, spoof or really stupid Republicans?”
Which do you think it is?
Site: MikeMcGavick.
Both of Washington state’s U.S. Senators are women: Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.
All joking aside: McGavick surely has immense personal wealth.
Further, McGavick is connected with the richest and most powerful members of Washington’s business community as well as national insurance company lobbyists.
Maria Cantwell: Senate site; campaign site
From the site:
“Speculation has been raised to the purpose of this site, and it’s quite obvious. Mike McGavick is our favorite millionaire in the world, and we would love him to run for Senate!”
And the site accuses Maria Cantwell of being both a millionaire and a socialist, while revering the fact that McGavick is an EIGHT-DIGIT millionaire.
comment from Switzerblog’s diary on the site:
Until an hour or so ago it read “Mike McGavick Fan Site”, not “Spoof Site”.
I guess the webmaster decided to show his cards.
Wonder if he’ll get sued?
by anonym on Wed Jul 20th, 2005 at 18:04:48 PDT
For someone who’s running for a Senate seat in a large, populous state, our old bête noire Rep. Katherine Harris seems to be just about the worst fundraiser imaginable. In the 23 days from her June 7 announcement that she was running to oppose Sen. Bill Nelson through the end of the fiscal quarter on June 30, instead of seeing a surge of donations, she received a grand total of — brace yourselves — $13,000. As noted in this article by the Bradenton Herald, during the same time period in 2003, she had raised $45,000. It’s nice to see that the regular GOP financial backers in Florida and elsewhere really, really don’t want her in the race.
A Quinnipiac poll from three weeks ago shows why her potential donors have every reason to be wary: while she only trails Nelson by 12% in the poll, “voters disapprove 43 – 33 percent of the role Harris played in the 2000 Presidential vote count and 37 percent say they are less likely to vote for her because of it.” As the poll summary notes, although Nelson is vulnerable (38% would like to see him re-elected; 37% would prefer someone new), “[t]hose wavering Democrats come scurrying home, however, when Harris is Nelson’s opponent.”
All the more reason, perhaps, to hope that she turns out to be the nominee. (It would also have the effect of getting her out of the House and creating an open seat in what should be a reasonably competitive district.)
OMG. Does she have opponents?
If she runs in the primary and loses, will she lose her seat in Congress?
From what I can tell (not being anywhere close to Florida), the only other GOP candidates at this point are State House Speaker Allan Bense and State Senate President Tom Lee. The bigger-name candidates (state AG Charlie Crist and state CFO Tom Gallagher) appear to have chosen to go for the governor’s office.
Things could change, of course, but so far, she’s way out in front for the primary, although it’s more name recognition than anything else at this stage. Among Republicans only, she leads with 54%, to 10% for Lee and only 6% for Bense.
I presume — but don’t know for a fact — that Florida does not allow candidates to run for multiple offices at the same time, and if that’s the case, even if she were to lose the primary, it would be too late for her to run as anything other than a write-in for her current seat. (She’d obviously be able to serve out the remainder of her term, however, so we wouldn’t be rid of her until Jan. 2007.)
Thanks, Maven. I’m glad you have kept up on this. Please continue.
Maybe Harris will have to sprinkle Kabbalah water around her campaign offices to pull off a win against Nelson.
Sen. John Kerry “has either contributed or raised more than $4.3 million for candidates and congressional committees since the beginning of the year. That total includes nearly $3 million in direct contributions, and $1.4 million in fund-raising that he directed through his Web site and his campaign for candidates and for troops overseas through the USO.” (Boston Globe, “Kerry Raising Millions for Democrats”, July 19, 2005)
Sen. Hillary Clinton raised more than $6 million during the April-to-June quarter for her re-election bid, and now has more than $12.6 million cash on hand.
For a party currently in the minority, we’re not doing to shabbily in the fundraising department, that’s for sure.
Question: Aside from McGavick, are there any other GOPers who’ve begun laying the groundwork for a run for Sen. Cantwell’s seat? Since Rossi deferred, that would seem to clear the decks for everyone else now.
The GOP plan is to have only one candidate run in both the primary and the general elections.
That’s one reason I’ve been a bit hysterical about the DFA/Wash. people who are talking about the Greenie weinie who wants to run in the primary against Maria.
But, sheesh, can’t someone beat some sense into them? Are they really serious about propping up a candidate for a primary run for the purpose of making a statement? I thought that the biggest complaint against Cantwell is that she hasn’t really done much of anything during her tenure. Has there been something specific that’s set off the enviros and leftists? She’s nowhere close to the top of my list of favorite Democratic senators, but she’s far from the bottom as well.
Why would any sane person try to make her re-election more difficult by bloodying her?