Our final roundup of independent expenditures made by the "Big Four" House groups (the DCCC, House Majority PAC, NRCC, and Congressional Leadership Fund) is here! During the time spanning Oct. 26 through Nov. 1, these organizations spent an additional $95 million in House races across the country, with Democrats outpacing Republicans $52 million to $43 million. Altogether, the DCCC and HMP have enjoyed a $223 million to $214 million spending edge over their GOP counterparts.
The seat that attracted the most new expenditures over the last week was California’s 25th District, where Republican Rep. Mike Garcia faces a rematch with Democrat Christy Smith months after beating her in a May special election. A little less than $4.4 million was spent here during those seven days, with Democrats outpacing the GOP by a narrow $2.3 million to $2 million. Not far behind was another Republican-held district, New York’s open 2nd District on Long Island: A total of $4.2 million was spent, with just over half coming from Republicans.
There are several other contests we’ll highlight. We got our first serious outside spending of the whole cycle over the last week in Illinois’ 17th District, where HMP spent a total of $1 million to defend DCCC chair Cheri Bustos while CLF dropped $480,000 to unseat her. By contrast, while CLF became the first of the big four to air ads in Pennsylvania’s 17th District during this time, it only ended up spending $150,000 against Rep. Conor Lamb.
Altogether, the seat that attracted the most big four spending from July onwards was the aforementioned California’s 25th District with $16.7 million: $8.4 million from Republicans and $8.3 million from Democrats. (This does not include spending from the special election.)
Just behind were two seats in New York held by freshmen Democrats. A total of $16.2 million was spent upstate in the 22nd District, with Republicans expending $10.6 million to defeat Rep. Anthony Brindisi and $5.6 million coming from Democratic groups. As we wrote last week, though, Republicans needed to spend heavily in large part because former Rep. Claudia Tenney has been so badly outraised that her allies have had to step in and handle many of the basic functions that her campaign should be doing instead.
The 11th District on Staten Island, meanwhile, received a total of $16.1 million in big four spending, with Democrats using $9.4 million to help Rep. Max Rose and Republicans dropping $6.7 million to defeat him.
The seat that attracted the most total spending from HMP and the DCCC was California’s 48th in Orange County, with these groups using $9.5 million to help freshman Rep. Harley Rouda compared to $2.6 million from the GOP; New York’s 11th and California’s 25th were second and third, respectively.
The aforementioned New York’s 22nd earned the most spending from the NRCC and CLF. Not far behind was New Mexico’s 2nd, where the GOP spent $9.4 million against freshman Democratic Rep. Xochitl Torres Small compared to $6.3 million from Democrats. In third was Florida’s 26th District, a Miami-area seat held by freshman Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, where the GOP outspent the Democrats $9 million to $6.2 million.
We also want to take stock of a few other contests. While Politico reported in September that Republicans had privately written off being able to hold onto Texas’ open 23rd District, neither side ever stopped spending in the contest to succeed GOP Rep. Will Hurd: Altogether, national Democrats dropped $5.3 million to aid Gina Ortiz Jones, while the GOP used $4.2 million to help Tony Gonzales.
Over in the neighboring 21st District, the DCCC and HMP used $3.8 million against freshman Rep. Chip Roy while the CLF and NRCC spent nothing. Team Red isn’t abandoning Roy at all, though, because the radical anti-tax Club for Growth has deployed a total of $6.3 million to help him fend off Democrat Wendy Davis. It’s a comparable situation in Arizona’s 6th where the Club has used $2.3 million to boost Rep. David Schweikert compared to just $305,000 from the CLF, while Democrats have spent $3.9 million against him.
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