Power shifts to outsiders in U.S. Senate fight
The days of candidates dominating their own political campaigns are over.
In the most competitive U.S. Senate races this year, big-money special interests that proliferated after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision are routinely out-muscling and out-messaging the candidates themselves.
This power shift is most prominent on television, where super PACs and politically active nonprofits — both may accept unlimited contributions — routinely account for nearly one out of every two ads run in a U.S. Senate race. Most of the ads are decidedly negative, and they’ve collectively cost hundreds of millions of dollars with Election Day still 10 days away.
Wealthy liberals and conservatives alike are complicit, pumping money into these groups that, by law, may not operate “in concert or cooperation with” the candidates or parties they seek to boost.
Related: Who's buying the Senate?
This stands in stark contrast to the 2010 midterm election, when the GOP embraced super PACs while Democrats shunned them. Now, big-dollar liberal groups sometimes trump their conservative counterparts as both seek to support candidates who will help their preferred party win control of the U.S. Senate during the final two years of Barack Obama’s presidency.
The Democratic Party is defending more than a half-dozen seats on Republican-friendly turf. The GOP will seize power if it picks up six seats. These stakes have created a financial arms race that will almost certainly make this election historically expensive.
“Everybody wants to have one more nuke than the other guy does,” says Kathy Kiely, managing editor of the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, which tracks money in politics.
Democratic super PACs on top
Related: GOP’s Senate hopes energized by Koch network ad blitz
When it comes to money, two Democratic super PACs reigned supreme through mid-October, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of filings submitted to the Federal Election Commission Thursday.
NextGen Climate Action — a super PAC primarily funded by billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer that aims to “prevent climate disaster and preserve American prosperity” — has raised more than $76 million since it was launched in 2013. No other super PAC has raised more.
Earning the No. 2 spot was Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC, a group run by allies of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. It had raised more than $53 million as of Oct. 15, including $5.5 million from Steyer and his NextGen Climate Action super PAC.
The top three Republican super PACs, meanwhile, raised nearly $68 million combined through mid-October, according to recent FEC reports.
Related: Can this 'dark money' group help the Democrats keep the Senate?
That includes $28 million raised by American Crossroads, a super PAC launched after the Citizens United ruling in 2010 with assistance from GOP strategist Karl Rove.
The Freedom Partners Action Fund, the super PAC backed by conservative billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch and their donor network, raised more than $20 million.
And nearly $19 million was raised by the Ending Spending Action Fund, a group founded by longtime Republican donor Joe Ricketts, the former head of online brokerage firm TD Ameritrade whose family owns the Chicago Cubs baseball team.
Nonprofits — which aren’t required to disclose the same financial details to the FEC and may generally keep their funders’ names secret — have also played a major role during the 2014 battle for the Senate, especially on the conservative side.
Related: Senate TV ads in key races by sponsor
Most notably, groups within the Koch brothers’ political network reportedly plan to spend as much as $290 million.
On the television airwaves, though, where voters still consume most of their political information, arms race metaphors are particularly apropos: In the 12 most-competitive U.S. Senate races, liberals and conservatives have nearly fought to a draw.
Republicans and their allies were responsible for 50 percent of the roughly 633,000 Senate-focused TV ads that have so far aired in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire and South Dakota, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of data provided by Kantar Media/CMAG, an advertising tracking service.
Democrats and their allies were responsible for 48 percent. And independents — namely Greg Orman in Kansas and Larry Pressler in South Dakota — were responsible for the rest.
Related: Total TV ads in the 2014 battle for the Senate through Oct. 20
GOP candidates generally relied more heavily on support from super PACs and nonprofits than Democrats did.
In these 12 U.S. Senate races, about 52 percent of all Republican-aligned TV ads were sponsored by outside groups, according to Kantar Media/CMAG. Only about 37 percent of all Democratic-aligned ads were produced by such groups.
Other ads were aired by candidates, parties or parties working jointly with candidates.
The official arm of the Democratic Party focused on Senate elections — the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — raised nearly $129 million through the end of September, according to federal campaign finance filings.
Related: Senate candidate fundraising through Sept. 30
That was some $30 million more than the $98 million raised by its rival, the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Even as many candidates also raised millions of dollars, if not tens of millions — as many incumbent senators have done — they have, nevertheless, regularly been out-spent by super PACs and politically active nonprofits that are unfettered by contribution limits.
A definitive tally of precisely how much has been raised and spent in the key U.S. Senate races this election is difficult because not all groups report numbers the same way or at the same time. Further complicating the issue, as of Friday morning, some Senate candidates’ recent contribution reports were still being processed by the government.
Nevertheless, some races stand out.
Related: Erika Frankler Fowler quote
Take North Carolina, for instance, where incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan and Republican challenger Thom Tillis have raised a combined $30 million through the end of September.
Non-party, outside groups there have already reported spending about $50 million on political ads to the FEC — and millions more have been spent on issue ads that need not be reported to the nation’s top elections regulator.
There’s more to this story. Click here to read the rest at the Center for Public Integrity.
This story is part of Buying the Senate 2014. Whether Republicans control both chambers of Congress squarely depends on Senate races in a handful of states. Click here to read more stories in this investigation.
Related stories
Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
