Friday July 27, 2023
ANALYSIS: The ticking funding time bomb | PIZZA!!!
ANALYSIS: The ticking funding time bomb
By Martin Davis
Virginia is among the few states that send its citizens to the polls every single year, and the strain of nonstop fundraising and campaigning occasionally rears its head in the form of low voter turnout. That was certainly the case this June, when Republicans underperformed at the polls, and Democrats bottomed out.
July’s candidate finance reports give us an idea of just how much was spent to garner a paltry number of votes.
More than $945,000 was spent by Republican Tara Durant and Democrat Joel Griffin to secure their spots on the November ballot for the seat in Senate District 27.
In House District 65, Lee Peters had to spend $115,911 to win his spot on the ballot in November. Democrat Josh Cole didn’t have a primary opponent and was able to spend money toward the November campaign. Which he did to the tune of $137,819.
Looking at cash-on-hand, it would appear that Cole is coming out of the gate with a substantial advantage. He has almost twice what his opponent Peters has on hand. Durant has a significant advantage over Griffin at the moment, but given that both candidates have relatively small amounts on the other hand, we wouldn’t read too much into Durant’s advantage.
First looks are deceptive
But these modest advantages at the moment are deceptive.
The real surprising data coming out of the July finance reports is what each party’s PACs are storing away for the November race.
This chart from VPAP, which shows each party's Top 5 lists for most money raised during the April 1 to June 30 filing period, says all one needs to know.
While much has been made of the almost $6 million that Gov. Glenn Youngkin has managed to raise, much less has been said about the PACs for Attorney General Jason Miyares and Lt. Governor Winsome Sears.
Though No. 4 on the list of Republican PACs, Sears’ PAC has more in it than the top five Democratic PACs combined.
In short, the Democrats are facing a ticking timebomb that the Republicans will detonate in October and November in the form of television ads, mailers, radio ads, and more.
How much of the Republicans’ war chest will actually find its way into the HD 65 and SD 27 races remains to be seen, but don’ be surprised if this money is the main engine behind Peters’ and Durant’s campaigns.
During the primaries, the Republican Commonwealth Leadership PAC (No. 3 on the current VPAP list) was the top donor to Durant’s campaign - $265,000. It was also Peters’ top donor - $55,000.
Expect considerably more of these PAC dollars to flow the Republicans’ way.
On the Democratic side, it was private donors who were the leading contributors to Griffin’s and Cole’s campaigns, though the Clean Virginia Fund was also a major contributor to both campaigns.
F2S is not generally in the habit of following the money. But this cycle, the Republicans’ giant war chest demands attention. When the Republicans detonate their well-funded PACs this fall and overrun the airwaves and mailboxes of voters, the question will be if the Democrats have the money to diffuse this timebomb with a tsunami of their own money.
It doesn’t appear that the Democratic PACs will supply it. And that puts added pressure on a party that is banking its survival on maintaining a Blue Wall to stop Youngkin’s agenda.
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