With the midterm elections a week away, candidates in California
are donating their fundraising dollars to candidates in districts
where the race is more heated.
Long-standing congressional incumbents are not just using their
name recognition for support ““ some who face no serious
threat of losing their reelections are dipping into their own
fundraising bank accounts and allocating the money to other
candidates in their party.
With a governing majority at stake in the Nov. 7 elections, both
major parties could be sizing up which races they have the best
shot at winning up until the last few days, subsequently putting
more money into those races, said Barbara Sinclair, a UCLA
political science professor who specializes in the U.S.
Congress.
“I would say that it’s 75-80 percent that the
Democrats take back the House of Representatives and 50-50 for the
Senate,” Sinclair said. “So it would make sense that
each party would focus on the Senate.”
The strategy of funneling money from one candidate to another
helps narrow the gap in certain races, but it also means that
citizens who donate money to a particular candidate could see that
money go to help another party member’s campaign.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has represented the 30th District,
which includes the Westwood area, since 1975. He thought to be in
little danger of losing his seat in the House, given that he won
reelection in 2004 with 71 percent of the vote.
Waxman, like many long-tenured representatives, has received
significant financial contributions due to his broad base ““
contributions that have been routed to other candidates’
campaigns.
Waxman has contributed $350,000 to Democratic candidates in
congressional and statewide elections and another $200,000 to the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Waxman spokeswoman
Karen Lightfoot said.
“It seems to me that the national races have taken the
oxygen out of the California races because they aren’t that
competitive,” Sinclair said.
And Waxman does have a stake in this election ““ as the
ranking minority member of the Committee on Government Reform, he
could become its chairman if the Democratic Party wins the majority
of seats on Nov. 7, Sinclair said.
“I don’t even remember the name of the guy running
against Waxman, and I’m a political science professor,”
Sinclair said. “So that should tell you what sort of
fundraising has been put into that guy’s campaign.”
“That guy” is David Nelson Jones, the 26-year-old
Republican challenger for the 30th District.
Now running in his first ever political campaign, Jones said he
was encouraged to run by the California Republican Party and got
the 40 required signatures from registered republicans in the last
48 hours. After an uncontested primary, Jones has raised $50,000 in
five months of campaigning.
“We’re proud of the money that has been raised,
going to our party’s base and getting not only money but
volunteer work,” Jones said. “But the work that a
campaign does is driven by fundraising, and in (the 30th District)
it’s always tough for a Republican to run.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee donated $1600
for the mandatory filing fees, while the NRCC has used $150,000
that was dispersed into his campaign budget.
Jones said the fundraising support he has received is much less
than what the Republican Party has poured into three other
campaigns that could help keep the Republican majority in the House
of Representatives.
“It makes sense,” Jones said. “I am mainly
running to make sure there’s an open marketplace of ideas,
and the seat doesn’t go uncontested. It’s a tough seat
for a Republican to win.”
In the 4th District, incumbent John Doolittle, R-Calif., is
running against Democratic challenger Charlie Brown.
The state’s 11th District pits incumbent Rep. Richard
Pompo, R-Calif., against Democrat Jerry McNerney.
The 50th-District race between incumbent Brian Bilbray,
R-Calif., and Francine Busby, D-Calif., will fill the seat left by
former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Cunningham
resigned after it was revealed he brokered several defense contract
deals with the corporation that bought his San Diego suburban home,
the San Diego Union Tribune reported.
In all three of these close races, the Republican incumbent has
raised more money that the Democratic challenger in the third
quarter, according to the University of Virginia Center for
Politics.
While the fundraising that each of these candidates has done
will surely help as the election draws near, it does not truly
reflect the money that is poured into each campaign.
For instance, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is running for
her third term in office, and had raised $5.7 million by the end of
2005. Considering the unlikelihood of losing her seat to Republican
challenger Richard Mountjoy, Feinstein is another incumbent in a
position to use her ample fundraising to try and deliver her party
a majority in Congress, Sinclair said.