Democrats raised far more money from political action committees this past election than Republicans did, even counting the new “Super PACs” President Obama claimed were giving the GOP a corporate-funded unfair advantage. Final campaign finance figures from the Federal Election Commission have come in, and they show a very different picture from the one painted by Obama and most of the media. The Democrats’ advantage in money from traditional PACs was just about 10 times the size of the Republicans’ advantage from the new Super PACs.
The Obama line — special interests, upset about the Democrats’ tough reforms, favored the GOP — got plenty play this cycle, and fit neatly into many journalists’ prejudices. But the truth is more complicated. Both parties are probably equally cozy with special interests.
PAC giving is a good measure of corporate political leanings, and by any measure, PACs gave more to Democratic candidates. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, traditional PACs — which are limited to $10,000 to each candidate — gave $220 million to Democratic House and Senate candidates this cycle, compared with $153 million to Republicans.
Some of the Democrats’ PAC advantage stems from PACs’ tendency to mostly fund incumbents — and Democrats had a lot more of those. But even adjusting for Democrats’ numerical advantage, you get a similar story: The average House Democrat running for re-election raised $677,409 from PACs, compared with $530,492 for the average Republican. On the Senate side, Democrats enjoyed a narrower advantage: $1.85 million to $1.61 million on average.
Again, these numbers can be explained in part by the incumbent bias — almost no Republican incumbents faced tough re-elections, and so they may have been less aggressive in fundraising. The data don’t prove that the Democrats are “the party of special interests,” but they certainly undermine the standard claim to the contrary. And drilling down, there’s more data like this.
The most prolific PAC in the country belonged to Honeywell International, a technology giant. About 55 percent of the PAC’s $5.6 million this election went to Democratic candidates. And much of Honeywell’s Republican money was spent trying to protect establishment Republicans from more conservative Tea Party challengers — Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Bob Bennett (Utah), Mike Castle (Del.), and Trey Grayson (Ky.) all got Honeywell checks in their failed primary bids.
Obama’s liked to pose as the scourge of Wall Street, but here again, the facts clash with Obama’s rhetoric. Democrats outraised Republicans from the “securities and investment” industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, including a 27.2 percent advantage in PAC money from the industry. Chuck Schumer was by far the top recipient.
And K Street’s allegiance was pretty easy to read. With Majority Leader Harry Reid easily leading the league in lobbyist money, Democrats raised nearly $2 from K Street for every dollar Republicans raised.
PACs from the health sector, which Obama pretended to be battling during his health care “reform” push, gave 58 percent of their contributions to Democrats. The drug industry spent $6.68 million in PAC money to help Democrats (compared with $5.12 million for Republicans), and through front groups also paid millions of dollars in ads to boost the likes of Harry Reid.
Democrats cite the big advantage the GOP enjoyed in funding from Super PACs — outside groups that could not coordinate with parties or committees, but could raise unlimited funds including direct contributions from corporations. American Crossroads, by far the biggest of the Super PACs, spent $21.6 million to help Republicans. Crossroads’ nearest competitor, America’s Families First, spent $5.58 million helping Democrats.
All told, according CRP data, conservative Super PACs outspent liberal ones $34.7 million to $27.9 million (and that includes a Super PAC expressly set up to help write-in Republican Murkowski beat Republican nominee Joe Miller in Alaska). Put another way, Democrats’ $67 million edge from traditional PACs was nearly 10 times larger than Republicans’ $6.8 million edge among Super PACs.
Yet, Obama continues to talk as if the special interests and big business are in bed with Republicans. He gets away with it, somehow, as the media largely ignores data — such as the above — that tell a different story.
As the 2012 election develops, expect Obama to vastly outraise all Republicans from the most entrenched special interests — as he did in 2008. But maybe this time, he’ll get called out for his preposterous populist posturing.
Timothy P.Carney, The Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Monday and Thursday, and his stories and blog posts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.
