CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Aug. 8, 2008 – 3:39 p.m.
Crossing State Lines for More Campaign Money
By Emily Cadei, CQ Staff
Senate candidates are coming to rely more and more on contributions from outside their home states to keep their campaigns alive, especially in hotly-contested races. In fact, 13 of the 18 Senate candidates in the most contested races this year are relying predominantly on out-of-state donors to fund their efforts, according to a CQ MoneyLine analysis of campaign finance reports through the first half of 2008.
Leading the pack of those 13 candidates are two prominent Democratic challengers — Al Franken, who is looking to unseat Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman , and former New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, who is challenging Republican Sen. John E. Sununu . Franken and Shaheen had both raised 78 percent of their funds as of June 30 from individuals who live outside the state. Sununu was a close third, with 77 percent of his funds coming from out-of-state donors.
The other ten candidates who have raised the majority of their money beyond their state borders are:
• Ted Stevens , R-Alaska, 72 percent (incumbent)
• Susan Collins , R-Maine, 71 percent (incumbent)
• Tom Udall , D-N.M., 67 percent
• Mary L. Landrieu , D-La., 62 percent (incumbent)
• Tom Allen , D-Maine, 62 percent
• Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., 61 percent
• Norm Coleman , R-Minn., 60 percent (incumbent)
• Mark Udall , D-Colo., 60 percent
• Ronnie Musgrove, D-Miss., 58 percent
• Gordon H. Smith , R-Ore., 52 percent (incumbent)
Crossing State Lines for More Campaign Money
As a whole, the incumbent senators in these races averaged more from out-of-state donors than the other candidates, and all but one incumbent has so far raised a higher percentage of money outside the state than they did in the 2002 election contest.
That’s not surprising, according to University of Maryland political science professor James G. Gimpel, who has done research on donor geography. As members of Congress go through multiple election cycles, “you go back to the same donors time and time again and you ask them to dig a little deeper and invite more of their friends,” Gimpel said. “So you tend to branch out from the existing networks.”
As a whole, the Democratic Senate candidates relied more on out-of-state donors than Republicans, something Gimpel said also is part of a larger pattern.
“There is some evidence that the donor base for the Republicans is a little more dispersed, a little less concentrated,” he said. “The Democrats’ base is entirely concentrated in the very, very wealthy coastal areas.”
But there is a great deal of overlap between the two parties’ donor bases, which tend to be located in wealthy, cosmopolitan cities and regions, Gimpel noted. And for Senate candidates in small states without large centers of commerce, these donors are becoming ever more important in helping cover the costs of increasingly expensive, high profile political races.
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