In its best election in over a decade, the National Rifle Association scored a 91.2 percent win rate in the House and Senate races it jumped into, and also found the bull’s-eye in state races, according to the Second Amendment group.
“Our members came out in droves and voted for their rights and their freedom,” NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam told Secrets. “This was one of the most successful election cycles in a decade,” he added.
Overall, the Northern Virginia-based lobby and education group spent about $35 million, more than in many past elections, and saw 229 of 251 candidates endorsed by the NRA and its NRA-Political Victory Fund win.
The independent Sunlight Foundation gave the NRA a 95 percent “return on investment.” By comparison, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who spent $20 million to crush pro-gun candidates, “got walloped,” added Sunlight.
Said Arulanandam, “as the results have shown, he failed.”
There were close failures though, such as the effort to dump anti-gun Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, but Arulanandam said that in most cases, “we replaced bad candidates with great candidates.”
As examples, he singled out the defeat of North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan and Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor. Both were replaced with candidates that had received an “A” from the NRA. He called the duo “very unreliable” on Second Amendment and gun rights causes.
He also said that the NRA went into several tough races, including the microscopic loss of NRA-endorsed Virginia Senate candidate Ed Gillespie. “We don’t just pick the easy races. If we see an opportunity to replace a legislator who isn’t friendly to our cause,” he explained, “we will go in.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
