DCCC And DSCC Forced Their Candidates To Sit On The Phone Raising Millions Of Dollars All Day-- And They Lost Anyway

 

I'm always complaining that the DCCC and DSCC are predisposed to oppose progressives. They recruit conservative Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party and when a progressive manages to win a primary, the two committees rarely offer them any support. But there's another context besides ideology at work here. Both the DSCC and the DCCC insist on candidates who will spend most of their energy on fund-raising-- dialing for dollars-- rather than on persuading voters by doing actual campaigning. This has been catastrophic for the Democratic Party. It winds up selecting really shitty candidates who don't know how to help voters understand issues and understand the inherent dishonestly of Republican attacks. And... the money doesn't make nearly as much difference as that ability to persuade does.

All but 3 of the House incumbents who lost (or are in races still too close to call) out-raised their Republican opponents:

• CA-21

Rep. T.J. Cox (New Dem)- 48.2%-- $4,798,088
David Valadao (R)- 51.8%-- $3,721,619

• CA-39

Rep. Gil Cisneros (New Dem)- 49.5%-- $3,779,013 (self-funded $9,252,762 in 2018 and didn't want to spend his own money again-- only gave his campaign $370,887 this time)
Young Kim (R)- 50.5%-- $5,319,367

• CA-48

Rep. Harley Rouda (New Dem)- 49.2%-- $5,426,654 (although the DCCC spent $10 million to try to save his ass)
Michelle Steel (R)- 50.8%-- $5,627,779

• FL-26

Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (New Dem)- 48.3%-- $6,178,239
Carlos Gimenez (R)- 51.7%-- $1,946,504

• FL-27

Rep. Donna Shalala (D)- 48.6%-- $3,405,420
Maria Salazar (R)- 51.3%-- $3,126,831

• IA-01

Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D)- 48.7%-- $5,308,465
Ashley Hinson (R)- 51.3%-- $4,601,403

• MN-07

Rep. Collin Peterson (Blue Dog)- 40.1%-- $2,284,742
Michelle Fischbach (R)-53.3%-- $2,205,150

• NM-02

Rep Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog)- 46.1%-- $7,509,987
Yvette Herrell (R)- 53.9%-- $2,498,130

• NY-11

Rep Max Rose (Blue Dog)- 43.1%-- $8,350,467
Nicole Malliotakis (R)- 57.9%-- $3,052,007

• NY-22

Rep. Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog)- 43.4%-- $5,359,636
Claudia Tenney (R)- 54.5%-- $2,053,931

• OK-05

Rep. Kendra Horn (Blue Dog)- 47.9%-- $5,465,349
Stephanie Bice (R)- 52.1%-- $3,089,972

• SC-01

Rep. Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog)- 49.4%-- $6,278,942
Nancy Mace (R)- 50.6%-- $4,891,696

• UT-04

Rep. Ben McAdams (Blue Dog)- 47.8%-- $5,137,258
Burgess Owens (R)- 47.2%-- $4,021,248

• VA-07

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog)- 50.6%-- $7,806,646
Nick Freitas (R)- 49.4%-- $3,182,940

Maybe if Max Rose didn't spend so much time on the phone begging rich people for money-- and instead talked to his constituents about programs the Democrats want to implement that would make their lives better, he would still be a congressman after January. Oh, but he can't talk about this things... he opposes them all.

And it was the same thing in the Senate, only worse. Schumer and the DSCC hammer it home several times a week that candidates must be on the phone raising hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's dehumanizing-- part of why none of their candidates seem human. Schumer-selected Democrats lost almost everywhere... but raised bucketfuls of money. In most cases they raised double, triple or quadruple when their Republican opponents raised:

• South Carolina

Jamie Harrison (D)- 44.2%-- $107,568,737
Senator Lindsey Graham (R)- 54.5%-- $72,690,495

• Iowa

Theresa Greenfield (D)- 45.2%-- $47,004,93
Senator Joni Ernst (R)- 51.8%-- $23,536,707

• Maine

Sara Gideon (D)- 42.8%-- $68,577,474
Senator Susan Collins (R)- 50.5%-- $26,511,555

• Montana

Steve Bullock (D)- 44.8%-- $42,773,128
Senator Steve Daines (R)- 55.2%-- $27,017,875

• Kentucky

Amy McGrath (D)- 38.1%-- $88,098,919
Senator Moscow Mitch (R)- 57.9%-- $55,500,67

• Kansas

Barbara Bollier (D/R)- 41.5%-- $24,265,420
Roger Marshall (R)- 53.6%-- $5,926,110

• Texas

MJ Hegar (D)- 43.8%-- $24,024,713
John Cornyn (R)- 53.6%-- $30,754,633

• Alabama

Senator Doug Jones (D)- 39.7%-- $26,377,442
Tommy Tuberville (R)- 60.1%-- $7,415,639

• North Carolina

Cal Cunningham (D)- 47.0%-- $46,795,495
Senator Thom Tillis (R)- 48.7%-- $21,474,728

• Arizona

Mark Kelly- 51.3%-- $88,856,406
Senator Martha McSally- 48.7%-- $55,772,809

• Colorado

John Hickenlooper (D)- 53.4%-- $39,303,249
Senator Cory Gardner (R)- 44.4%-- $26,063,229

All that financial firepower didn't do it for the Senate candidates. And now the Democrats are going to run the exact same kind of race (2 of them) in Georgia... money, money, money and not much messaging for working families. I guess it took 5 minutes for Schumer to forget that "money did not prove decisive for Democrats in hotly contested Senate races, despite a combined Democratic fundraising advantage over $200 million. Democratic candidates raised a whopping $626 million in 14 highly competitive races, vastly overshadowing Republican collections of $386 million in the same contests."

“We just got completely slaughtered on Election Day. There truly was a red surge,” said a Democratic operative who worked closely with the Harrison campaign. “Turnout was just incredible, which isn’t necessarily a good thing for us, in red states.”

Democrats who had hoped to easily oust the 53-47 Republican Senate majority have instead won a net gain of only one seat so far. They could reach a majority, if they win two Georgia Senate seat runoffs on Jan. 5. Such a result would give them a 50-50 split, if Democrat Joe Biden is declared president and Kamala Harris vice president, allowing her to cast a tie-breaking vote.

Senate Democrats are already calling on supporters to send campaign contributions to Georgia candidate Raphael Warnock. Warnock, far more progressive than any of Schumer's candidates, is one of the only Democrats who was out-raised by his Republican opponent-- although in that case, his opponent, Kelly Loeffler, is both a well-documented crook and a billionaire. She out-raised him by $7 million, although "out-raised" might be the wrong word, since she contributed $23,345,292 out of her personal piggy-bank, so far.