Confession time:
I was never much for dolls as a kid. Barbie, Cabbage Patch, Polly Pocket, Jem … okay I tolerated Rainbow Brite because I was addicted to the cartoons, but also I played way more with Starlite than I ever did with her (and I was into My Little Ponies, too… fake girls, boo, fake animals, yay? I’m not sure what this says about me but it’s probably something).
But, what with all the Barbie movie buzz (and the hilarious conservative backlash to the film), I’ve got America’s favorite doll on the brain. Apologies in advance.
Plastic Doll
Campaign contributions haven’t been about hard cash for a long time, and while actual paper checks to still change hands now and again, election dollars these days are usually fully plastic transactions.
And while elections aren’t all about money, they’re also not not about money.
In Virginia – home to the most interesting set of elections this year – a key fundraising deadline just passed.
Historically, the midsummer finance reports are … well, they’re odd little creatures.
The preceding round of campaign finance filings covered the period from April 1 through June 8, which is
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A good chunk of time that
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Not only covers most of the fundraising around primary contests, but also allows members to really flex their post-session fundraising muscles (in Virginia, as in many states, lawmakers are prohibited from raising money during the legislative session, which ends at either the end of February in odd years).
In contrast, the most recent round of campaign finance reports covers just a few weeks.
The rationale behind this probably has something to do with capturing late primary donations (which, as you may recall, happened on June 20), but generally speaking, it can be tough to read too much into campaign cash numbers for such a short span of time.
But the next crop of fundraising reports covers the period from July 1 through August 1 — and they won’t drop until mid-September.
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… which means they’ll be incredibly educational in terms of campaigns’ strength and viability, but there won’t be much time left in the cycle to plug funding holes and spend last-minute dollars.
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After all, early voting for this fall’s general election begins on September 22.
But that isn’t to say that this most recent crop of campaign finance reports is useless. Far from it, in fact.
So let’s talk about what they signal regarding each party’s quest to take full majority control of both chambers of Virginia’s General Assembly.
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Republicans control the House 52-48 (although technically both parties are currently down two seats because of required resignations to seek other seats/offices).
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Democrats have a 22-18 majority in the state Senate.
First, a little good news for each side of the aisle:
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On one hand, of the House candidates with the most cash on hand, three of the top five are Republicans.
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Of the top five Senate candidates in terms of cash on hand, three are Democrats.
The good folks at VPAP helpfully broke down how much each candidate raised by quarter, rather than by reporting period, since the difference between the June 8 reports and June 30 reports are generally pretty negligible.
Anyway, the good news here for Democrats is that both their House and Senate candidates are, broadly speaking, outpacing their Republican counterparts over the course of the first six months of this year in terms of overall fundraising.
But the state election cash race in Virginia is never quite that simple.
Most states, including Virginia, permit things like leadership PACs and caucus committees and other non-candidate fundraising vehicles.
But most of those other states don’t take the … ah, permissive approach to campaign finance that Virginia does.
Virginia is not most states.
In Virginia, election contributions have basically zero restrictions in terms of eventually getting to their intended candidate, and it’s all relatively easy to track (thanks mostly to the aforementioned VPAP, which is easily the most useful state political resource anywhere outside of Ballotpedia and NCSL, which also have the benefit of being nationwide).
But that also means that no assessment of campaigns’ fiscal health is useful without also taking these leadership committees/PACs into account.
And the financial story told by those numbers has a happier ending for the GOP than it does for Dems.
And then there are the “leadership committees.”
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These PACs aren’t new to Virginia – at least 11 governors have made use of them, as have various lawmakers seeking to not only build up their party’s numbers in the legislature, but also wield more political influence within their respective caucuses.
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But the thing about Virginia governors is that they can’t run for reelection while they’re in office, so any money their leadership committees raise is free to go to other things.
Which brings us to the status of Virginia’s “leadership committee” PACs.
Just for a little context, the previous gubernatorial fundraising record was $4.77 million, set by then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe in 2015 – and that total was for the entire year.
So unless some VERY rich progressives get off their butts, Virginia Democrats are going to come up VERY short in the cash race this cycle.
Of course, the candidate/party that has or spends more money is in no way guaranteed to come out on top on Election Day.
But it’s a lot easier to get your message out there, fund a viable field program, and just generally run good campaigns when you’re rolling around in a big pile of money.
And now we travel to Wisconsin (which, well, I’m putting the finishing touches on a list of The Worst Legislatures In America, and you bet your ass the Badger State is on it) for some more lousy news — but also maybe some slightly less lousy news.
Did you know there was a special election for Wisconsin Assembly District 24 this week?
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Honestly, no one’s mad if you didn’t – the seat isn’t super competitive this decade and the fact that Rs kept it did nothing to alter the balance of power in the GOP-dominated state Assembly (which, by the by, is still 64 R/35 D).
The main reason I’m even mentioning this special at all is because of Dems’ relative overperformance in this race.
Anyway, Wisconsin Assembly Republicans remain just two seats shy of a veto-proof supermajority (they already have it in the Senate), so a win here would have been rad, but gerrymandering is a hell of a drug, so to speak.
Speaking of special elections, Democrats in Pennsylvania are facing a stark reminder of just how fragile their House majority is.
As an erudite consumer of this missive, you may recall that Dems’ tiny (102-101) majority in the Pennsylvania state House has already resulted in controversy this year.
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Waaaaaaay back in January, the Pennsylvania House became a hotbed of drama after a death and two resignations denied Democrats the tiny technical majority they’d won in the November elections, when they picked up the 12 House seats they needed to flip the chamber.
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But with Democrats’ hard-won majority knocked back to just 99 members in the new year because of two resignations and a death, Republicans had the numbers to go down in a blaze of sour grapes – that is, to deny a Democratic Rep. Joanna McClinton the speakership.
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A compromise temp speaker was agreed upon, but then Republicans got mad that they couldn’t bully him into doing what they wanted, so pretty much nothing got done until the three specials to fill those vacant seats were held in February.
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These seats were solidly blue, and to no one’s surprise, Dems held all three.
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The compromise speaker stepped aside, and McClinton was elected to the role, and life went on.
But this week, another Democrat resigned from the House – Rep. Sara Innamorato, who’s running for a local office this fall.
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This technically ties the chamber 101-101, but considering that Pennsylvania’s legislative session is in recess until the last week of September, this won’t meaningfully affect anything until after Innamorato’s seat is filled in a special election on September 19.
The seat is pretty solidly blue; Innamorato won it last year with 64% of the vote, and it went for Biden 61-38% in 2020, so don’t expect any huge power shifts as a result.
Speaking of states where legislatures flipped red-to-blue last fall, Republicans in Michigan are having a time.
They’re understandably mad that they’re out of power, but instead of focusing on, say, promoting policies or candidates that voters might actually support in 2024’s general elections, when the entire Michigan House will be on the ballot again, some conservative activists have launched recall campaigns against five first-term Democratic women … and, oddly, one Republican.
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The five targeted Democrats are Reps. Betsy Coffia, Jennifer Conlin, Jaime Churches, Sharon MacDonell, and Reggie Miller—women who were all elected just last fall and helped usher in Democrats’ new 56-54 majority.
According to the recall petitions filed with the secretary of state's office, a handful of conservative activists are targeting these Democratic women for their votes in favor of a bill expanding hate crimes (which hasn’t even passed the Senate yet, much less become law!) and a new red flag law that allows courts to remove firearms from people deemed to pose a danger to themselves or others.
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You can read the rest of this week’s edition here!