Mary Altaffer/AP Photo
Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz arrives onstage to speak at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, September 3, 2022.
The Democratic cash crunch has become a defining factor in the closing days of the midterm elections, with the party’s national groups pulling out of a number of swing districts across the map because of the shortfall. While Republicans’ financial strength is largely attributable to their close relationships with the millionaire and billionaire donors who fund their political action committees, they are increasingly utilizing their connection with wealthy political donors in another fashion: by recruiting them to run for office.
The most egregious example of a candidate bankrolling their own run this cycle is Pennsylvania Senate nominee Mehmet Oz, who has used the fortune he obtained hawking questionable medical advice to pour over $20 million into his race against Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. But while the high-profile nature of competitive Senate races ensures both nominees will raise enough money to get out their message, self-funding often has a much greater impact in House races, where a sizable financial edge can end a potentially competitive race before it even begins.
A Prospect analysis of the 68 competitive House races this cycle—defined as the 50 races FiveThirtyEight deems most competitive, as well as other seats where national party PACs have invested money—indicates that Republicans have substantially padded their financial advantage by recruiting a jaw-dropping number of wealthy nominees. Thirty-six of the 68 Republicans running in competitive races have loaned their campaigns money. And 21 of those 36—nearly a third of the Republican nominees in tight contests—have given their campaigns more than $100,000.
Democrats, meanwhile, have only six candidates in close races who have loaned money to their campaign committees. Of those six, only three have given themselves $100,000 or more. Progressive Texas Democrat Michelle Vallejo has poured exactly $100,000 into her bid to hold the open Rio Grande–based 15th District. In North Carolina’s 13th District, Democratic nominee Wiley Nickel has spent $900,000 against Republican Bo Hines. (Not to be outdone, Hines has in turn pumped $926,000 into his campaign’s coffers.) And millionaire incumbent David Trone, the only Democratic nominee who’s ponied up over a million dollars, has lent his campaign a staggering $12.5 million to hold Maryland’s Sixth District.
Trone’s enormous investment is the greatest sum any one House candidate has given their campaign committee this cycle. And it demonstrates the power of personal wealth to neutralize what should be competitive races: Despite running in a Republican-leaning seat in a challenging electoral environment, national Republican groups have declined to invest in his challenger, Neil Parrott, apparently calculating that the money is better spent in other races.
Conversely, nominees with personal fortunes are also capable of creating the opposite dynamic, by turning races that should be off the board into tight contests that drain the resources of national party committees.
Democrats in seats that should be in the likely Democratic column are learning this the hard way. In Oregon, scandal-plagued millionaire Mike Erickson has spent over a million dollars to put his race against state representative Andrea Salinas for the new Sixth Congressional District into the toss-up column. A similar story is unfolding in Illinois’s Springfield-based 13th District, where Democratic nominee Nikki Budzinski is struggling to secure a clear lead over millionaire self-funder Regan Deering in a seat President Biden won comfortably. And Democratic incumbent Andy Kim, whose Central New Jersey seat was thought to be shored up after redistricting, has found himself locked in a tight battle against Republican nominee Robert Healey, who has also given his campaign over a million dollars.
The boost that the Supreme Court provided to wealthy self-funders amplifies the litany of advantages those candidates already enjoy.
Republican and Democratic super PACs can partially alleviate the challenge posed by self-funding opponents, but the advantageous advertising rates given to candidates’ personal committees means outside groups often need to spend two or three times as much money for similar amounts of airtime.
The rate at which candidates have been self-funding their campaigns has steadily grown—a trend that is likely to accelerate after a May Supreme Court decision that changes the way candidates are able to repay the personal loans that they make to their committees. In FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate, the Court struck down provisions that limited when candidates can pay back personal campaign loans with money raised after an election. Because winners can reliably raise vast sums in subsequent cycles from lobbyists, base party donors, and corporate PACs thanks to the advantage of incumbency, wealthy nominees can now essentially borrow from future campaign contributions in order to fund their current race.
As Open Secrets has reported, candidates with their own reliable source of campaign cash can often clear the field in primaries, which prevents any spillover damage from intraparty feuds and allows them more time to focus on the general-election campaign. And unlike typical candidates, who are often cautious about investing in large campaign teams and early advertising reservations—lest their fundraising fall short of expectations—self-funders’ financial security allows them to invest earlier and more aggressively. Wealthy nominees are also able to tap into their personal and professional networks for even more campaign cash, boosting their built-in advantage even further.
According to Public Citizen’s Craig Holman, the boost that the Supreme Court provided to wealthy self-funders amplifies the litany of advantages those candidates already enjoy, and gives them cover to deny they are buying their races. “The Supreme Court has essentially given these candidates cover to fund their campaigns and claim that that’s not really so, because the money will be paid back through donations later,” Holman said. Holman says the new loan repayment system creates a perverse incentive structure, where candidates can buy their races and rely on close relationships with large donors and corporate PACs to gradually repay their investment—with interest.
In a saner political atmosphere, Republicans’ reliance on exorbitantly wealthy politicians to win power might be more of a liability—especially during a midterm election defined by rapidly increasing costs of living. But the GOP’s Trumpian brand of populism has proved stubbornly resistant to critiques of its economic contradictions. Democrats’ tacit allowance of their own self-funders, like Trone, and their waning focus on bread-and-butter economic issues has also contributed to the permission structure that allows Republicans to court wealthy candidates with little penalty. At this rate, it may soon prove more prudent to simply auction congressional seats to the highest bidder, rather than maintain the pretense of a functional campaign finance system.
