After a dynamite fundraising quarter, Dem incumbents and candidates in battleground House races are significantly outraising their opponents
Highlighting the unpopularity of extreme Republicans, House Democrats across the battlefield are dominating the fundraising race and building momentum to retake the majority.
In the past week, the DCCC had its single best online fundraising day of the cycle and some House campaigns saw an 800 percent increase in daily donations – in addition to 17 Democratic ‘Red to Blue’ challengers last quarter who outraised their incumbent Republican opponents in GOP-held districts.
And House Republicans just can’t keep up.
Read more from POLITICO about House Democrats’ growing momentum and fundraising strength with just over 100 days till Election Day:
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… 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.
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 benefited 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:
Rudy Salas, who is challenging Rep. David Valadao (Calif.) in a district Biden won by 13 points in 2020;
Adam Gray, who is challenging Rep. John Duarte (Calif.) in a district Biden won by 11 points;
Josh Riley, who is challenging Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) in a district Biden won by 4 points;
And Janelle Stelson, who will face Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) in a district Trump won by 4 points.
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.
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.
In the aftermath of Biden endorsing Harris, DCCC had its single best online fundraising day of the cycle.
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.
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.
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