Hello! After taking a disclosure hiatus, independent groups filed some expenditures with the FEC yesterday.
Pro-Markey groups continued their spending dominance in Massachusetts. Mark Pryor, again, was the target of opposition expenditures, making him the target of now $260K in opposition spending by SCF and Club for Growth Action.
Now that the show is over in South Carolina, attention is turning to the US Senate general election in Massachusetts between Democratic Party front-runner Ed Markey and Republican newcomer Gabriel Gomez.
Each candidate was involved in a competitive primary and have garnered significant support from outside money organizations. Today’s quick post includes some summary charts of the independent expenditure landscape for each of these candidates to date.
This first chart compares the total independent expenditures targeting each general election candidate so far.
No expenditures filed with the FEC have opposed either Markey or Gomez.
These next chart breaks down the groups that have disclosed independent spending targeting each candidate.
So, what do these charts tell us?
Recent Suffolk University polling results show that Ed Markey has a significant early lead over Gomez 52% to 35%. Having been a member of the US House since 1976, Markey’s early success in the polls is probably due to the fact that he is a known political quantity in a traditionally left-leaning state. On the other hand, his early numbers might also be due in part to the visibility brought to his Senate candidacy by his significant edge in supportive outside money.
CBMG will continue to analyse disclosures to the FEC between now and June 25th, election day in the Bay State.
Mark Sanford (R) won the special election for South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, defeating Elizabeth Colbert Busch (D), despite being outspent in both conventional campaign spending and outside sources.
Byron Tau at Politico wrote a good summary of the cash disparity within this special election. Results from the 2012 election cycle showed that achieving an edge in spending does not guarantee election victory. There are myriad contextual factors that greatly influence the outcome in ways untouched by campaign cash. We do not yet fully know how spending interacts with voting results, if different types of spending at different times have more catalytic effects or if achieving certain spending thresholds are more important.
Nevertheless, let’s look a bit further at the political spending totals in South Carolina. As usual, the data below is from official information filed with the FEC as of the time of posting.
The Campaign Cash:
Elizabeth Colbert Busch $946,580
Mark Sanford $622,509
The chart below displays the campaign spending over time.
After relative spending parity throughout early 2013, Colbert Busch outclassed Sanford from early April onward.
The Outside Cash:
Pro-Colbert Busch groups dominated their pro-Sanford counterparts. The following chart breaks down how outside groups targeted the candidates with outside expenditures.
The third and fourth charts display which groups supported and opposed Colbert Bush and Sanford.
Combining campaign and outside spending, Sanford was outspent by Colbert Bush by $1.1MM. For every dollar disclosed by pro-Sanford forces or the Sanford Campaign, Colbert Bush spent $2.40.
So, do we know anything that we didn’t before? Above a threshold, does a little spending go along way for established candidates? Did the Sanford campaign and pro-Sanford outside groups spend their money in a better way? Are their certain candidate “unfavourables” that campaign spending cannot overcome?
CBMG will continue to post analysis of political spending to attempt to shed some light on these questions. Keep checking back for our daily posts.
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Good morning everyone. It’s election day in South Carolina. Only two independent expenditures were filed with the FEC yesterday, both from the Independent Women’s Voice group.
Independent Women’s Voice’s print ads ran on May 5th and 6th and were provided by Post and Courier LLC. For a full breakdown of the SC spending picture take a gander at yesterday’s post.
We’ll post more FEC filings and independent spending analysis as the day progresses so keep checking back.
Welcome back to CBMG for another breakdown of outside money current federal elections. Disclosures from the last few days solely targeted the current US House election in South Carolina between former Governor Mark Sanford (R) and Elizabeth Colbert Busch. The disclosure summary table below includes all the independent expenditure fillings with the FEC from May 2nd to May 5th.
The Roundup: $164K disclosed by 4 groups.
The Big Spender: The Independent Women’s Voice political action committee dropped a relatively hefty $140K in South Carolina over the weekend, nearly all on expenses related to a TV ad entitled ‘Elizabeth and Rich’ opposing Colbert Busch.
Cashing In: Victory Media Group took the cake, walking away with a sizeable $126K million. VMG has earned over $130K so far this election cycle, the eight largest amount for any single disclosure recipient.
The High Striker: The Republicans. Pro-Republican groups spent over 80% of the cash in early May, outpacing pro-Democrats significantly. For every dollar disclosed by the Dems, the Reps spent $6.
Now, on the eve of this election, let’s look at all the independent spending targeting South Carolina House hopefuls thus far.
Pro-Colbert Busch groups have dominated the independent expenditure picture. Pro-Sanford forces only recently have made a small late run as the pro-Colbert Busch spending has plateaued. As is generally the case in the post-Citizen’s United election landscape, nearly all the independent expenditures have been opposition spending negatively targeting the rival candidate.
Democratic party-leaning PPP polling data shows that the race is tightening going into the final day of the campaign.
Stay tuned…
Yesterday’s post discussed the most recent independent expenditures filed with the FEC for the current election cycle. Today we are going to breakdown the outside spending in the races targeted by the May 1st filings.
Independent expenditure groups disclosed over $160K in US Senate elections in Arkansas, Massachusetts and Maryland and the US House race in South Carolina. The three charts in today’s post display the groups that have filed independent expenditures in those races during 2013. First, let’s look at the Senate election in Arkansas.
So far, only two groups have filed disclosures for this election. Each group, the conservative Club for Growth Action and Senate Conservatives Fund, has targeted current US Senator Mark Pryor (D) with opposition spending. These two groups have focused their spending on TV ads and ad production in addition to voter contact mailings.
Thirteen groups have disclosed outside spending influencing the US Senate election in Massachusetts. The two Democrats vying for their party’s nomination, Ed Markey and Stephen Lynch were targeted by a majority of the spending. In total, Markey received nearly $1.3 million of outside spending - all made in support of his election efforts. Lynch was the target of just over $800K in independent money, nearly all opposing his candidacy. Markey beat Lynch by a considerable margin, capturing 57% of the vote.
The two Republican primary candidates, Michael Sullivan and Gabriel Gomez, garned a small fraction of the Massachusetts independent expenditures. Both receiving solely supportive spending, pro-Gomez groups spent over $90K and pro-Sullivan forces disclosed over $33K. Gomez won the primary by 15%.
In the open US House election in South Carolina, one candidate, Mark Sanford (R), has been the target of nearly all outside spending. 12 groups disclosed a total of over $980K in this election. 8 of the 12 groups disclosing expenditures thus far have focused on former Governor Sanford. 98% of the $940K targeting Sanford has been spent in opposition of his election efforts.
Only one outside group, cryptically called Schroeder, disclosed $700 in support of Daniel Schroeder, the listed candidate for the Maryland US Senate seat.
Check back tomorrow for more updates on outside spending for the current election cycle.
CBMG is back after a vacation-induced hiatus! Today’s post breaks down the independent expenditures filed with the Federal Election Commission on May 1st.
Yesterday five groups disclosed over $160K in spending that focused on four federal elections. The table below summarizes the disclosures.
Most of the cash flowed into the high-profile special election for the open seat for South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District opposing Republican candidate Mark Sanford.
The chart below compares today’s disclosure amounts alongside the 2013 spending totals for each group.
House Majority and Club for Growth Action were big spenders during the 2012 election cycle and have started 2013 by targeting the races in South Carolina and Arkansas respectively. So far in 2013, over $9MM in independent spending has been disclosed with the FEC.
Check back later for a further information on Wednesday’s independent expenditures.
How did spending in the Arizona Senate race develop over time? In this post we have seven charts that display the different types of spending across the later months of the 2012 election cycle.
The two charts below show the independent expenditures supporting/opposing each candidate.
These next charts display the campaign spending for Flake and Carmona.
The chart below simply overlays the campaign disbursements for each candidate.
The final spending-oriented chart presents the total ‘supporting’ expenditures for each candidate - as with previous posts, total ‘supporting’ expenditures include campaign disbursements and independent expenditures supporting the specific candidate and opposing his/her rival.
We’ve posted this chart a few times this week, but it displays the results of four polls conducted for the Arizona race in from May 2012 onward.
The 16 polling results displayed in the chart were taken by PPP, Rasmussen Reports, Behavior Research Center, PPP, High Ground/Moore, Rasmussen Reports, PPP, PPP, Rasmussen Reports, Project New America/PPP, PPP, Magellan, Rasmussen Reports, NBC News/Marist, PPP and PPP, looking left to right. Remember, these polls have their own prejudices and limitations that undoubtedly alter their accuracy. All that said, Flake was leading in the polls in 2012 until August and again by mid-October.
What do we know now? Again, due to the data quality provided by the FEC, all but the most basic inferences need to be excluded.
We will continue to explore the spending data for 2012 elections to attempt to contextualize some of what we think we know about the impact of money in elections. The data above does not provide any answers about whether or not money affects elections, but it offers some food for thought as we take this series forward next week.
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We’re back for more of the campaign finance story in the 2012 Arizona Senate election. In the past two days we’ve covered some of the spending - campaign and outside - in this election and some basic voting and polling information. Today we are going to display some of the independent spending data covered in yesterday’s post across the final three months of the campaign.
Public-facing spending is not an official type of expenditures tracked by the FEC. Instead of lumping all independent expenditures together or just sorting them by general type (media-related, consulting, equipment, etc.), the charts below include only the independent expenditures that went toward public-facing purchases. It might be instructive to modify the expenditure data to attempt to show only the expenditures that directly ‘interacted’ with the public. Examples of these types of purchases are, ads (TV/radio/web/etc.), direct mailing and phone calls, signage and canvassing.
As seen in other elections covered in CBMG’s series, public facing expenditures, in size and frequency, increased as election day approached. Opposition expenditures appeared before the supporting cash. The bulk of the cash was disbursed in October, with opposition spending dominating the landscape.
It is important to remember two broad factors when looking at the rudimentary data above. From last week’s post…
Just because an ad buy was purchased/disclosed on a certain day it does not necessarily mean that the specific ad immediately hit the airwaves. This time-lag issue is influenced by the second factor…
The price of media buys are not static. As election day nears, more and more airtime is purchased and, logically, the price for the remaining slots rises. The price for the two back-to-back TV slots in late October, for example, will fluctuate depending on when each were purchased.
Does this mean that the FEC data is meaningless? No. But, without significant improvements to the FEC disclosure system that require more information from outside organizations, the public will only see part of the picture.
The next chart displays the above expenditures sorted into two groups for greater clarity.
Pro-Flake groups disclosed nearly $9.6MM, $1.3MM more than the pro-Carmona forces. All of the spending in October does correlate to the only two polling results (Oct 3rd and Oct 10th) that put Carmona ahead of Flake.
Did the influx of pro-Carmona public-facing spending temporarily affect public opinion? Was the correction in the polls related to the aggressive pro-Flake expenditures. Did factors exogenous to spending alter public opinion? Again, there is no way of knowing based on the information we have now. But, it is simply too reductionist and naive to assume that spending levels had no or negligible impact. We will continue to review other 2012 Senate races to attempt to answer some of these questions.
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Today’s post will breakdown the independent spending picture for the Arizona Senate contest. We are taking a step back from the question of whether the unlimited money from private sources affected the election to focus on other issues. Which independent groups supported the candidates? Was there a disparity in support? What did the independent expenditure groups purchase with their stacks of cash? Which companies made the most money during this election?
For background, yesterday’s post covered the major details of the race between the two challengers, Jeff Flake (R) and Richard Carmona (D) – campaign disbursements, total outside spending, voting totals and basic polling data. The basic factors were: Flake won the election by 3% of the overall votes and held a steady advantage, on average, in the polls. The Flake campaign disbursed more cash than Carmona, but was also the target of more opposition independent expenditures. Carmona lagged far behind Flake in receiving supporting independent expenditures. In all, a majority of the outside money went toward opposition spending.
The first chart below, displays organizations that supported Carmona and their total expenditure amount.
Carmona received a paltry $180K from supporting groups. The League of Conservation Voters and the Humane Society Legislative Fund and Fair Share Action were Carmona’s only big backers. The next chart is an overview of the groups that supported Flake.
Big national Republican-aligned SuperPACs and 501(c)(4) organizations (Freedomworks, Club for Growth, NRA, etc.) spent large amounts of cash in favor of Flake. In total, outside groups supported Flake to the tune of $3.6M – 95% more than Carmona.
Nine groups disclosed expenditures in opposition to Carmona. Again, large pro-Republican groups footed most of the bill. Race-specific 501(c)(4) organizations and superPACs were not active in this spending category.
National pro-Democratic Party groups flexed their cash-swollen muscles and spent heavily to oppose Flake. The top three spenders, DSCC, Majority PAC and AFSCME People, collectively disclosed nearly $100MM in the 2012 election cycle.
The two charts below display the expenditure type for the sets of independent expenditure organizations targeting Carmona and Flake.
As we’ve done in our previous independent expenditure posts, we sorted the disclosures into some very broad buckets that reflect the end-purpose of the expenditure. The ‘TV ads’ category, for example, includes all expenditures going toward producing TV ads, from design and production costs to purchasing the ad buys. Similarly, the ‘Mail’ category includes many different types of printing, postage and design expenditures. As has been the case for the previous Senate elections in our series, TV ad purchases were the must-have item for independent expenditure groups of all stripes, followed by mail outs, web ads, phone voter contact and radio ads.
The final chart breaks-down which groups made the most money off the 2012 independent expenditures in Arizona.
Pro-Caroma expenditures (spends supporting Carmona and opposing Flake) funnelled large dollars into three media-oriented organizations – Waterfront Strategies, Great American Media and Adelstein Liston. Pro-Flake forces passed a lot of their cash to the Strategic Media organizations, Mentzer Media and Red Sea, but also spread their expenditures out to more media and campaign companies than pro-Carmona indy groups.
After reviewing this aspect of the spending picture, can we point to any specific trends / patters / findings of note?
For the third time in our exploration of 2012 elections, the candidate experiencing more opposition spending had the edge in the campaign disbursements, suggesting that outside groups may be compensating for general funding disparities.
Check back tomorrow for another post in CBMG’s series on the 2012 Arizona Senate election and feel free to post any questions in the comments section.
Contact CBMG: cantbuymegov@gmail.com
