How Much Did Self-Funding Help In The California Congressional Races?

Gil Cisneros, the DCCC's staff's idea of a candidate

There were a lot of candidates willing to spend over $500,000 of their own money to buy a place in the general election run-off. None of the big spenders came in first and most of them failed to come in second, which is what they would have needed to get into the general election. These are the 3 districts, all in Orange County, where multimillionaires spent over half a million in the effort. All but one of the big self-funders are Democrats, in part due to the DCCC's repulsive obsession with recruiting wealthy self-funders. In some cases they actually hurt themselves by recruiting more than one self funder in a single district. The DCCC recruited both Gil Cisneros and Mai Khanh Tran in the 39th and Harley Rouda and Hans Keirstea in the 48th, a race that still hasn't be called.

Worse yet, in the 39th, Cisneros is such an abysmal candidate that unless the blue wave is an absolute tsunami, he's unlikely to be able to win the general election. What the DCCC has done is cede the best target in Orange County to the Republicans just because Cisneros is such a big spender, his only "qualification" for office.

The vote counts are as of last Saturday, June 16 and the money totals are of May 16

CA-39

• Gil Cisneros (D)- 25, 291 (19.3%)- $3,552,762
• Andy Thorburn (D)- 12,046 (9.2%)- $2,785,900
• Herbert Lee (D)- 5,456 (4.2%)- $800,000
• Mai Khanh Tran (D)- 6,793 (5.2%)- $730,000

CA-48

• Harley Rouda (D)- 29,178 (17.2%)- $1,130,500
• Omar Siddiqui (D)- 8,384 (5%)- $764,820
• Hans Keirstead (D)- 29,292 (17.3%)- $730,400

CA-49

• Paul Kerr (D)- 7,707 (4.5%)- $4,112,728
• Sara Jacobs (D)- 27,154 (15.7%)- $1,587,831
• Brian Maryott (R)- 5,133 (3.0%) $700,000