by Arjun Singh
House Democrats are spending millions more on ads and sending top surrogates to areas of the country where they have traditionally won elections, as Republicans expect to benefit from a “red wave” in November’s midterms, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
House Majority PAC, a Super PAC allied with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, purchased ads in three districts surrounding New York City – New York’s 3rd and 18th Congressional Districts and New Jersey’s 5th Congressional District – which have Cook Partisan Voting Index scores of D+3, D+1 and D+5, respectively. In total, spending on these districts was $6.3 million, per the Washington Post’s examination of Federal Election Commission filings.
The House Majority PAC has raised more than $134 million since 2021, of which $52 million has been spent on ads and donations to support Democrats’ election prospects, according to OpenSecrets.org, a campaign finance watchdog. The amount is far below the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), a Republican-supporting Super PAC allied with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, which has raised nearly $250 million and spent nearly $110 million.
📣 CLF is adding $11 million in additional ad buys!
♦️Spans 16 districts
♦️7 of the districts were won by Biden by double digits
♦️CLF’s spending reservations now total more than $210 million
We’re pressing deeper into the map to win the Majority! https://t.co/had3cVhoJG
— Congressional Leadership Fund (@CLFSuperPAC) October 26, 2022
To counter the effect of GOP efforts, First Lady Jill Biden visited Rhode Island to campaign for the state’s Democratic General Treasurer Seth Magaziner, who is running for the 2nd Congressional District, according to the White House. Magaziner is down in the polls against Republican candidate and former local mayor Allan Fung in a district that President Joe Biden won by 14 percentage points in 2020.
The House Majority PAC’s spending came as the CLF announced $11 million of new spending in 16 Congressional Districts across the country, seven of which “were won by Biden by double digits,” per its tweet announcing the expenditures.
Republican Rep. Tom Emmer, who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is responsible for electing Republicans to the House, said that the Democrats were “flailing.”
“They’ve never really had a plan. It seems like they don’t have any focus,” Emmer said. One Democratic strategist speaking to the Post described House Democrats’ prospects as a “blue-state meltdown.”
Emmer’s Democratic counterpart, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a New York metropolitan area Congressman, is currently in a competitive race to remain in Congress. Running in the state’s new 17th Congressional District, he is currently six percentage points behind his Republican challenger, Mike Lawler.
Republicans need to win just six more seats, while maintaining all others, to gain a majority in the House assuming no vacancies. The CLF’s president, Dan Conston, expects Republicans to exceed that gain, predicting wins of approximately “20 to 25” seats.
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Arjun Singh is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
