Self-Funding Republicans Often Win; Self-Funding Dems Lose-- But That Doesn't Stop The DCCC From Recruiting Them

DCCC 2018 mascot-- "ex"-Republican lottery winner and self-funder Gil Cisneros

Last year, creepy Texas Blue Dog Vicente González bought himself a South Texas congressional seat. There were 14 very entitled multimillionaires who spent over a million dollars each on congressional campaigns last cycle. 4 were Democrats, 8 were Republicans and 2 were conservatives running as third party candidates. Self-funding is a perfectly respectable Republican thing to do and Republicans who set out to buy House seats often win. Democrats normally don't. 3 of the Republicans are now in Congress + the Texas Blue Dog who tends to vote like a Republican.

• David Trone (D-MD)- $13,414,225- lost primary
• Randy Perkins (D-FL)- $10,127,029- lost
• Francis Rooney (R-FL)- $4,136,754- won
• Paul Mitchell (R-MI)- $3,607, 287- won
• Trey Hollingsworth (R-IN)- $3,142,150- won
• Martin Babinec (I-NY)- $2,990,000- lost
• George Flinn (R-TN)- $2,795,000- lost primary
• Stewart Mills (R-MN)- $2,147,169- lost
• Christine Jones (R-AZ)- $2,044,909- lost primary
• Vicente González (D-TX)- $1,850,000- won
• Bob Poe (D-FL)- $1,825,308- lost primary
• Glen Robertson (R-TX)- $1,636,459- lost primary
• Mark Freeman (R-FL)- $1,627,756- lost primary
• Shawn O'Connor (I-NH)- $1,253,450- lost

This cycle, Trone is running again, self-funding again-- albeit in another Maryland district he doesn't live in. He plans, if necessary, to spend even more than the $13.4 million he spent in 2016. He'd be replacing another worthless multimillionaire self-funding, Wall shill and New Dem John Delaney, who claims to be running for president. Delaney, one of the worst Democrats in Congress. He originally bought his seat with $2,370,556 of his own money and spent another $937,912 of his own to hold onto it in 2014, but just $354,125 of his own last cycle.

The DCCC loves self-funders and promotes them relentlessly despite the fact that they usually tend to be conservatives-- actually that's a bonus for the DCCC. Their favorite candidates are always self-funding conservatives. This cycle they recruited a completely worthless lottery winner, "ex"-Republican Gil Cisneros, to run in a landlocked district far from his Newport Coast $10 million beachfront mansion.

The DCCC didn't dare interfere in the CA-34 special election to replace Xavier Becerra a couple months ago, but a rich, conservative "ex"-Republican-- albeit one backed by GOP officials-- Robert Lee Ahn-- was the substitute Republican Party candidate for the seat. Although officially Ahn "only" self-funded to the tune of $498,400, his father started a shady SuperPAC, Citizens For A Better Government, and put another $140,050 into the race against the actual Democratic candidate, Jimmy Gomez. In the end Gomez beat Ahn 59.2% to 40.8%, despite outspending Gomez $1,658,181 to $1,093,504.

Despite being constantly recruited by the numbskulls at the DCCC-- painfully incapable of learning from experience-- Open Secrets explained why self-funders usually lose.

Self-funders clearly face unfavorable odds-- but why is that?

“The main reason is they tend to be extremely inexperienced in politics,” said Jennifer Steen, associate research professor of political science at Arizona State University. “Often, they don’t have compelling resumes, they don’t have compelling credentials.”

“Campaigning is something that you get better at with practice, and they don’t know how to do it,” she added.

...How about President Donald Trump-- the cycle’s top self-funder-- who, when announcing his candidacy, said, “I don’t need anybody’s money.” Trump gave his campaign about $66 million in loans and contributions-- although some of that money found its way back to him.

“In Trump’s case, self-funding can also become self-profit,” wrote Stephen Wayne, professor of government at Georgetown University, in an email. “Look at the expenses paid to the Trump organization for rent and plane and other staffing expenses.”

Trump’s campaign paid more than $1.4 million to Trump Tower alone-- essentially recouping about as much as candidate Hillary Clinton contributed to her campaign overall.

Ultimately, Trump’s $66 million in self-funding accounted for less than 20 percent of the money his campaign raised (and fell short of the $100 million he said he’d contribute), as he also received nearly $267 million from other individuals and organizations. That fact is key, as Trump’s self-funding was complemented by his populist appeal and media attention, which allowed him to circumvent one reason for the dismal success rate of self-funders: Such candidates mostly miss out on fundraising’s potential to facilitate base-building.

“It really does make a difference if you raise a dollar versus writing a check,” said Steen. “Getting people to give you whatever amount is asking them to support you. So if you raise money from 1,000 contributors, that’s 1,000 people who are interested in your campaign and vested in your success.”

According to Fischer: “Generally speaking, when a candidate is running for office they need to build a base of support, and that includes fundraising from, ideally, a broad range of people. And if you’re self-funding you don’t necessarily have to go through the difficult work of building that base of both popular and financial support. You can plow straight ahead and hire staff, pay for ads and open campaign offices.”

Some candidates have plowed straight ahead, multiple times, to limited success. James Oberweis (R-Ill.), a businessman and member of the Illinois Senate, has mounted three self-funded campaigns: In 2004, 2008 and 2014. Those efforts cost him a total of over $8 million, to little avail.

Connecticut Republican Linda McMahon, of wrestling fame, channeled even more of her own money into her bids. She ran for the Senate in 2010 and 2012, and the two races combined put her back nearly $100 million. That price tag was so high that both of her candidacies are among the five campaigns that featured the highest amounts of self-funding since 2000. While McMahon hasn’t become a senator, she does now lead the Small Business Administration under Trump.