Thread: At $4 Billion, 2014 Is Most Expensive Midterm Ever

2:10 pm ET
Oct 23, 20142014

At $4 Billion, 2014 Is Most Expensive Midterm Ever

*This is a projection.

Nearly $4 billion will have been spent on this year’s midterm election, including $2.7 billion spent by candidates and parties and almost $900 million spent by outside groups, according to a projection by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

That’s a stunning figure, making this election by far the most expensive midterm in history—outpacing 2010 by almost $400 million and 2006 by nearly $1.2 billion. It would also outrank the amount of money spent on congressional races in 2012, by about $330 million.

What’s even more startling is that the $4 billion figure—which also includes $315 million spent on operating costs by PACs—doesn’t include the full picture of outside spending in this year’s races. The projection only includes spending disclosed to the Federal Election Commission. The CRP estimates that another $100 million will likely be spent on the election by next month, though the exact number is impossible to know because of disclosure rules.

Furthermore, due to the complex set of campaign-finance rules, some groups can spend hundreds of millions influencing elections without having their spending count strictly as election spending.

How? By running “issue ads,” which highlight a candidate’s stance on a certain topic, but don’t explicitly advocate for or against the candidate and therefore don’t need to be disclosed to the FEC.

(Here’s an example.)
The CRP estimates hundreds of millions will have been spent on such ads—an amount not included in the $4 billion estimate. This is an area where conservative groups, like the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, have dominated. (Liberal groups, meanwhile, have taken the lead among outside groups like super PACs that disclose their donors and spending to the FEC. The CRP report projects these liberal groups will spend $270 million on the election, compared with the $181 million spent by conservative groups.)

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While those groups aren’t required to disclose their spending until the end of the year, one way we can glimpse how much money is being spent is by relying on media trackers. The Wesleyan Media Project conducted an analysis of Kantar Media/CMAG data and found that through Oct. 9, pro-Republican groups had run nearly 30,000 more TV ads than pro-Democratic groups since January 2013.

That doesn’t mean that Republicans on aggregate have run more ads than Democrats. In the two weeks from Sept. 26 through Oct. 9, Democratic candidates, parties and groups ran more ads than Republicans in 10 of the 15 Senate races with the greatest number of ads, according to the Wesleyan report.

While Democrats may be running more ads, they actually spent less money in those two weeks—despite the fact that Senate Democrats’ campaign arm has consistently outraised its Republican counterpart this year. In those two weeks, Republican candidates, parties and outside groups outspent Democrats in eight of the 15 races, and both sides were tied in a ninth race.

There are two reasons for the gap. The first is that Republicans have relied more on outside groups for their advertising than have Democrats. In 13 of the 15 races, groups were responsible for a larger percentage of the pro-GOP ads than the pro-Democratic ads. And in some states with heated races—including Iowa, Colorado, Arkansas and Michigan—groups accounted for more than half of the pro-Republican ads being aired.

That discrepancy in itself would explain the difference between money spent and ads ran. But Michael Franz, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, said in a statement that Republicans’ reliance on outside groups means they “are not getting as much bang for the buck as Democrats.” That’s because TV stations are required to give candidates the “lowest unit rate” in the 60 days leading up to an election—a rule that doesn’t apply to outside groups.

A second reason why Democratic dollars are going further is that Democratic parties and groups appear to have been more strategic in when they reserved their airtime. Democratic officials have touted the fact that they reserved airtime early, ensuring lower rates than groups that booked closer to the election.

When the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Senate Democrats’ main campaign arm, reserved ad time in Manchester, N.H., in July, the cost per point—the measure of calculating ad rates—was $235, according to a DSCC official. This month, that price has skyrocketed to $1,600 per point. In Denver, the DSCC paid $560 per point when it reserved air time this summer, and that number has more than tripled to $1,780 this month. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has reserved air time in both those states this month.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/1...EditorsPicks_3

http://www.alipac.us/f9/%24100-milli...istory-313149/

http://www.alipac.us/f9/1-mans-%2410...et-gop-307671/

http://www.alipac.us/f9/2014-midterm...donors-313981/

http://www.alipac.us/f9/voter-turnou...e-wwii-314316/