Democrats have had a bright spot after several months of fretting about their electoral prospects: Their House candidates are flush with cash.
Both parties have sought to stockpile money as they’ve prepared for a heated fight for control of Congress, and incumbents on both sides have raised large amounts. But Democrats in particular — despite being battered and bruised from weeks of chaos — have seen marked success in fundraising.
Democratic challengers last quarter outraised their incumbent Republican opponents in 17 of the 29 GOP-held districts that either party considers competitive, according to a POLITICO analysis of Federal Election Commission data. In races with settled primaries, those Democratic challengers raised an average of $1.2 million — compared to a $965,000 average raised by the Republicans they’re looking to oust.
That fundraising advantage, revealed in FEC reports last week, was a rare glimmer of hope for Democrats facing tough battles for the White House and Senate. They need to gain just a few additional House seats to win back a majority, but Democrats have in recent weeks feared that President Joe Biden’s deep unpopularity would torpedo their chances.
Then Biden ended his bid, Vice President Kamala Harris stepped in and tens of millions of dollars began pouring into Democratic coffers. How much of that money ends up helping the dozens of battleground House races remains to be seen, and there’s no guarantee that jolt will continue through the cycle, especially as Republicans aggressively look to define Harris and tie down-ballot Democrats to her.
Republicans say they’re used to being outraised, but the fundraising gap has not grown big enough to worry them. Plus, the GOP incumbents benefit from larger war chests on average compared to their Democratic challengers.
But Democratic candidates and groups, warily breathing a sigh of relief, are emboldened by what they’ve seen in recent days.
“It’s the new beginning, different faces, fresh moment. That’s true in New Jersey, but it’s also now true nationally,” said Sue Altman, a first-time candidate running against Republican Rep. Tom Kean in New Jersey’s battleground 7th District. “For a while there, our campaign was providing hope when other places in the country hope was hard to find, and that’s including the presidential mess. I think now, however, it’s even more so the snowball is rolling down the hill because now there’s hope everywhere you look.”
Democratic challengers — but not Republican ones — are raising a lot of money
At the party committee level, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee outraised its Republican counterpart by $7 million last quarter. And more than a dozen non-incumbent Democrats brought in more than $1 million from April through June.
Many of those were repeat candidates and benefitted from name recognition and fundraising infrastructure from their previous runs — but others, like Altman and Oregon state Rep. Janelle Bynum, who’s challenging Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, posted impressive hauls as first-time congressional candidates.
Four Democrats in Republican-held districts targeted by DCCC raised more than twice as much as their GOP opponents in the second quarter:
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Rudy Salas, who is challenging Rep. David Valadao (Calif.) in a district Biden won by 13 points in 2020;
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Adam Gray, who is challenging Rep. John Duarte (Calif.) in a district Biden won by 11 points;
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Josh Riley, who is challenging Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) in a district Biden won by 4 points;
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And Janelle Stelson, who will face Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) in a district Trump won by 4 points.
Salas, Gray and Riley all ran in 2022. Stelson, a former TV anchor, is running for the first time.
What makes the Democratic challengers’ strong fundraising particularly notable is that Republicans looking to take down Democratic incumbents in battleground districts did not show the same strength.
Across 34 swing districts Republicans are targeting or Democrats have said they’re actively protecting, only one incumbent, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), was outraised — and he’s fending off a challenge from former Republican Rep. Mayra Flores, who held the seat in 2022 and 2023. In races where the primary is settled, the average Republican challenger raised $404,000, compared to $984,000 raised by the average incumbent Democrat.
The average Republican challenger had less than $500,000 cash on hand as of the end of June, compared to $2.5 million for Democratic incumbents.
There are still real challenges for Democrats
Democrats will still need to convert their strong fundraising into electoral wins, and they’ll continue to face real obstacles to doing so.
For one thing, Democratic challengers have some catching up to do when it comes to their cash reserves. That’s the money that will be important heading into the most active stretch of campaigning, and while Democrats have narrowed the gap in recent months, GOP incumbents continue to hold an advantage, with a bit shy of $2.7 million cash on hand on average compared to more than $1.9 million on average for Democratic challengers.
It’s difficult to oust an incumbent, and money doesn’t guarantee a win. And it takes money for non-incumbents to erase the built-in advantages of those already in Congress, who have higher name ID, and get their message out to voters.
Republicans dismissed the Democratic fundraising numbers, saying GOP candidates remain in a strong position heading into the final months of their races.
“Democrats traditionally always raise more money than our team does,” National Republican Campaign Chair Richard Hudson told POLITICO last week.
He noted that the NRCC’s second-quarter fundraising was its best ever for April-June of an election year and said he’s “pleased” with the amount of money they have raised.
“Our $37 million to $44 million, if we can keep that close, I’m not concerned about it,” Hudson said. “We can’t let them get so far ahead that they can kind of blow us out of the water, so we’ve got to continue this pace, we’ve got to continue to raise the money.”
The NRCC has also boasted other statistics, like its candidates who are backed by Speaker Mike Johnson outpacing their top recruits from the midterms in fundraising and cash on hand. The Republican incumbents designated as top defensive priorities by the NRCC slightly outraised DCCC’s endangered incumbent Democrats by just under $20,000 last quarter.
Republicans are also poised to be buoyed by big outside spending: the party’s chief House super PAC, Congressional Leadership Fund, had nearly $111 million in the bank as of the end of June, compared to $88.6 million for its Democratic equivalent, House Majority PAC.
Democratic hopes spiked after Harris took over the Biden campaign
Down-ballot Democrats have been touting gains — from interest in their campaigns to hard dollars — in the days immediately following the launch of Harris’ campaign for president.
In the aftermath of Biden endorsing Harris, DCCC had its single best online fundraising day of the cycle. Democrats’ Senate campaign arm saw a boost, too — also coming off of a strong quarter for Democratic Senate candidates compared to their Republican challengers. And the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which marshals the party’s strategy for state legislative races, also posted record-breaking days in the Harris aftermath.
A full picture of post-Biden fundraising won’t be clear until all congressional campaigns file their third-quarter FEC disclosures in October, but several Democratic congressional candidates reported significant surges. Some House and Senate campaigns saw an 800 percent increase in daily donations in the immediate aftermath of Biden’s decision. ActBlue, the major Democratic donation processing platform, said that small-dollar donors gave more than $154 million to Democratic campaigns and groups, from the presidential race on down, in the 48 hours after Harris’ campaign launch.
“Donors have clearly gotten the message that we need to flip the House because the presidential is expected to be close,” said Brian Derrick, co-founder of Democratic donation processor Oath.
He said the enthusiasm for Democrats with Harris at the top of the ticket can help down-ballot candidates in states that aren’t presidential battlegrounds, but have competitive House seats, like California and New York.
Dave Min, a Democratic state senator running for California’s open battleground 47th District, said the days since Harris’ campaign launch on Sunday have seen an acceleration of the fundraising momentum he saw in the second quarter, when he raised about three times as much as his Republican opponent.
“Normally we see a cyclical trend in our fundraising: It’s kind of static for most of the quarter, and toward the end of the quarter it picks up significantly,” Min said. “In the last few days, we’ve seen numbers that look more like the end of the quarter. … It tells us there’s a lot of excitement around the change at the top of the ticket.”
And Will Rollins, a fellow California Democrat who’s running for a second time to unseat Republican Rep. Ken Calvert and raked in more than $2 million in the second quarter, said he raised six figures online since Sunday with more than 2,000 unique donors.
“I think it’s more than just a sigh of relief,” Rollins said. “It’s feeling fired up.”
