Mississippi Democrat Mike Espy raised $1.4 million during the first 18 months of his long-shot bid to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. In the three days since Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, Espy raised $1 million.
Fundraising for Democratic Senate candidates has exploded since Ginsburg, a beloved liberal icon, died on Friday. That evening through Tuesday afternoon, online donation platform ActBlue processed $170 million in contributions overall to Democratic candidates and groups. Some of that cash is flowing to Democratic challengers running in red states whose path to victory is virtually nonexistent regardless of how much money they rake in. Espy is one.
Amy McGrath is another. The Kentucky Democrat is raising tens of millions of dollars for her underdog campaign to oust Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell despite having little chance of success. But Democrats are pressing Republican incumbents in at least seven states where the terrain is more favorable and the Senate races are legitimately competitive. It is in these contests that a flood of fresh money could tip the scales.
“Money isn’t the only factor in elections, but it’s certainly important. The candidate or party spending the most money on ads has the opportunity to shape the conversation in a way that helps their cause,” said Nathan Gonzales, a nonpartisan political handicapper who publishes Inside Elections. “It’s harder for Republicans to shape their own Senate race when Democrats are driving their own messaging and spending more doing it.”
The battle for the Senate has come into focus in the wake of Ginsburg’s death because of the chamber’s role in the confirmation of a new associate justice. President Trump plans on Saturday to nominate a conservative woman to succeed Ginsburg, and McConnell has promised the Senate would consider the president’s pick and hold a floor vote on her confirmation despite the close proximity to the election.
Grassroots liberals are outraged, claiming Republicans are being brazenly hypocritical given that McConnell blocked President Barack Obama’s nominee to succeed conservative Justice Antonin Scalia after he died in February 2016, saying then that Supreme Court confirmations should cease in election years when the Senate and White House are controlled by opposing parties. Democratic voters are channeling their outrage by giving millions of dollars to Democratic Senate candidates.
This late September largess is in addition to the stellar fundraising Democratic Senate candidates have enjoyed since the beginning of the 2020 election cycle. With recent polls showing Trump trailing Democratic nominee Joe Biden and surveys showing Democratic challengers leading in Senate races in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, and North Carolina, this fresh influx of campaign cash could prove too much for Republican incumbents to overcome.
Even Republicans in traditionally solid red states such as South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who happens to be chairman of the Judiciary Committee that will process Trump’s Supreme Court nomination, and Georgia Sen. David Perdue are weathering a tsunami of Democratic money that have helped turned their campaigns into margins-of-error contests. Other presidential-year red states where Democrats are running strong in Senate races include Alaska, Kansas, and Montana.
“Those who believe that this nomination fight is going to be a good thing for the Trump and congressional Republicans are significantly underestimating the impact it’s going to have with the progressives and the Democrat base,” a veteran GOP strategist said. “It’s entirely possible we will see a replacement confirmed to the Supreme Court, while President Trump loses his reelection and we lose control of the Senate.”
Democrats are delighted by the financial windfall. But quietly, party operatives are resisting overexuberance.
In 2018, after North Dakota Democrat Heidi Heitkamp voted against confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, she raised $12 million from liberal activists in two weeks, a gargantuan sum, especially to spend in a small, sparsely populated state. No matter, voters in heavily Republican North Dakota ousted her from the Senate; it was not even close. Republicans like to recall this race when asked about Democratic fundraising. But Democrats recall it, too.
Yet in several other races, the fundraising frenzy is providing Democratic challengers with, in some instances, more resources than they could possibly spend by Nov. 3. This dynamic could create crucial advantages that push them over the top against Republican incumbents.
Down the stretch of a campaign, candidates often have to limit funds and decide whether to prioritize voter turnout activities, television advertising, or digital outreach. Many Democratic challengers in close Senate contests will not have to make any of those tough choices between now and Election Day, and that could put their party in control of the chamber come January.
“Holy God, those ActBlue numbers,” a Democratic strategist said. “It’s not everything, of course — ask Heidi. But nobody’s going to have a budget gap this year, that’s for sure.”
