(Link in Pic)
UPDATED via Politico:
Democrats love to cast Republicans as the party of big money, beholden to the out-of-touch billionaires bankrolling their campaigns.
But new numbers tell a very different story — one in which Democrats are actually raising more big money than their adversaries.
Among the groups reporting the biggest political ad spending, the 15 top Democrat-aligned committees have outraised the 15 top Republican ones $453 million to $289 million in the 2014 cycle, according to a POLITICO analysis of the most recent Federal Election Commission reports, including those filed over the weekend — which cover through the end of last month.
The analysis shows the fundraising edge widening in August, when the Democratic groups pulled in more than twice as much as their GOP counterparts — $51 million to $21 million. That’s thanks to a spike in massive checks from increasingly energized labor unions and liberal billionaires like Tom Steyer and Fred Eychaner.
So, even as Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are working methodically to turn conservative megadonors like the big-giving conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch into the boogeymen of 2014, the party itself is increasingly relying on its deepest pockets as the best chance of staving off a midterm wipeout forecast by oddsmakers.
For example, Steyer, a retired San Francisco hedge fund billionaire, on Aug. 15 stroked a $15 million check to his own NextGen Climate Action super PAC that single-handedly exceeded the combined monthly total raised by the two GOP congressional campaign committees. And his political lieutenant, Chris Lehane, hinted that Steyer, one of the biggest individual donors of 2014, may give more to his super PAC than his $50 million pledge, which Lehane said “should not be seen as a ceiling.” Steyer’s spending — and that of other Democratic billionaires — has helped fuel an advertising gap favoring the party’s candidates in key races across the country….
More info at FEC linked in graph at top. See also NewsMax.
(Above) MSNBC Can’t Think of Any Possible ‘Good News’ for Progressives Tonight
The above graphic will change… the race in Alaska will be called for the Republican in the race, this from the Alaskan Dispatch: “With results from all 441 precincts counted, Sullivan led 49 percent to 45 percent. The margin remained essentially the same from the first returns early in the evening.”
In December you will have a runoff in Louisiana… in which even CNN says will be a Republican win. (The Democrat lost with T W O Republicans running against her!)
So the number for the Senate will be a plus-nine.
PBS notes that the “wealthiest Americans have spent more money than ever before on these midterms, but there are actually fewer big donors. The top five donors to unrestricted super PACs reads like a billionaire boys club.”
The top-five out of the ten are donating to Democrat “causes.” What is the lesson here? Money doesn’t matter! Here is the NYT’s assessment of outside groups:
…Outside groups working on behalf of Democratic candidates have extended the advantage. Super PACs, environmental organizations and abortion rights groups have spent more than $4.8 million on ground activity in Senate races in Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan and North Carolina. Republican-leaning groups have kicked in only $369,000…
This H U G E win adds to the historic wins in 2010: “Michael Medved goes over just how HUGE this victory was for the Republicans on Nov 2, 2010.”
For example, here are a couple news headlines from this 2014 race:
- Republicans win historic majority in Ohio House; keep solid majority in state Senate
- Missouri Republicans grow their veto-proof majority in the state House and Senate
- History Is Made: America’s First Female Black Republican Elected To Congress
- House Republicans are looking at their largest majority since 1928 according unofficial results from last night’s election
- First Openly Gay Republican Wins Seat in Congress
- Wow! Even Indicted Republican Who Threatened to Toss A Reporter Off Balcony Wins in New York
Here is more from Libertarian Republican:
HISTORIC! — Thanks Obama
The Republicans have scored one of the largest victories in political history:
(1) Winning control of the Senate by adding eight seats (AK, AR, CO, IA, MT, NC, SD and WV), with LA sure to be added.
Already there are indications that Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia will switch over to the Republican Party, and that Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent, will caucus with the Republicans. Were they to do so, the Republicans would have the largest number of Senators in their caucus since the 70th Congress (1929-1930).
(2) Enlarging their majority in the House with a net gain of at 16, with two more to be added in Louisiana. This will be the largest number of Republican Congressmen since the 70th Congress (1929-1930). Among the incoming Republicans are two African Americans: Mike Hurd of Texas and Mia Love of Utah. Let’s grow this number.
(3) Adding to their already large majority of Governors, winning AR, IL, MA and MD, while losing AK and PA. This will bring the number of Republican Governors to 31.
(4) Winning control of at least five state legislative chambers (CO Senate, NM House, NV House and Senate, and WV House). I believe the Republicans now have control of the largest number of state legislative they have ever had. The Democrats are of course seeking to minimize their loses.
A President’s party tends to lose seats in the elections of his sixth year, they say. But the cumulative loses over six years of this President are unprecedented. The President blames the loses on the map. Yet, look at how geographically-dispersed are the states in which we have made gains, including among them some Blue States as well as Red and Purple States.
FLASHBACK 2009: James Carville Says Democrats Will Dominate Politics for Next Four Decades
And how is the Left taking all this? Gay Patriot points out the despair:
The Democrat Left is dealing with last night’s election results… not well.
“So The American Voters Have Rewarded The ReThugs For Shutting Down The Government….obstructing everything President Obama wanted to accomplish; sticking with the NRA; refusing to raise the minimum wage; refusing to deal with the immigration issue; piling more debt on students/student loans; voting to repeal ACA over 50 times when the American People finally had some relief on health insurance; and the list goes on and on. What is wrong with the American People. They believe the lies. They like to be lied to. They vote against their better interests.”
To hear the lamentations of their women:
“Tonight doesn’t make me wish I had quit smoking. An early death would be merciful compared to a long slow one with insufficient nutrition and no health care, which is what is coming up. I’m torn, can’t decide in which order to cry and vomit and get sick.”
Progressive Lesbian Sally Kohn is alternating between denial and despair. Will Saletan of Slate, OTOH, has firmly come down on the side of denial and insisting that… if you look at the elections a certain way, they are actually an endorsement of Obama’s left-wing policies.
Not to be outdone, a member of the DailyKos Lunatic Asylum demands that leftists must start outbreeding conservatives: [Language Warning]
All of us who are not genetically inclined to vote Republican must start breeding. Incessantly. Enthusiastically. Purposefully. Without pause. Dawn till dusk, fucking and having babies. Because that is the only way to increase our numbers relative to theirs. They cannot be convinced, reasoned with, shamed, embarrassed, educated, or informed. They are freeze-dried shit, and our counsels to them are as winter wind against frozen stone. Save your money – there isn’t enough money in the universe to spend them out of delusion. They must be out-bred, they must be outnumbered. They must become Neanderthal to our Cro-Magnon
Remember when Little Green Footballs used to be the anti-Kos blog? Then, they went full-on leftist and the two are now politically indistinguishable. This LGF election thread contains no fewer than 74 uses of the F-word in response to Republican victories.