Virginia 2007 Races Shatter Fundraising Records
posted 9:25 pm Tue October 16, 2007 - RICHMOND, Va.
Add in nearly $21 million raised by Virginia political action committees in a pivotal year for state House and Senate races, and the political fundraising total approaches $68 million. "Those are just shocking, phenomenal numbers," said University of Virginia political science professor Larry J. Sabato. "That is about the level of a presidential campaign 20 years ago."
Figures compiled from campaign finance reports due Monday with the State Board of Elections showed that as of Sept. 30, state Senate candidates had raised nearly $25 million since January of 2004, and House candidates had raised $22.3 million since January of 2006.
The sum of those fundraising totals matches the record amount that Democrat Timothy M. Kaine and Republican Jerry W. Kilgore raised and spent in the entire governor's race two years ago.That gubernatorial race beat the spending record set by the 2001 governor's campaign by 40 percent.
It's also more than double the amount raised four years ago, the last time all 100 House seats and 40 Senate seats were up for election. That year Senate candidates raised $12 million by the end of September, while House candidates raised $10 million. The PACs had raised about $10 million.
At the present pace of fundraising, Sabato said, it's possible that this year's campaigns could reach $100 million raised through the Nov. 6 election.
"In practical terms, this kind of money just removes the legislature from the real world," Sabato said. "People look at that kind of money and they figure they don't have even a fraction of the influence that these wealthy lobbyists and special interests and corporations have, and they're right."
The enormous sums reflect the harrowing partisan stakes of this year's election. A net gain for the Democrats of four Republican Senate seats would restore Democratic control of the Senate for the first time since 1995. In the House, Democrats would have to gain 11 seats to win a majority there.
The Senate race is crucial to both parties because it is the last election before 2011, when the General Assembly redraws Virginia's legislative and congressional district boundaries. If a party controls both the House and Senate, it can tailor the districts in ways that expand and consolidate its majority for another decade, as the GOP did in 2001.
The most prolific fundraisers have been Senate Republicans. Together, they raised $14.3 million to the $10.3 million Democratic Senate candidates raised, according to a computer analysis of fundraising summaries compiled from the SBE reports by Virginia Public Access Project, a nonprofit and nonpartisan tracker of money in state politics.
But Republicans were forced to spend heavily in several bitter and competitive June Senate primaries, offsetting its advantage heading into the fall stretch. And in September, Democratic Senate candidates raised $2.6 million to $1.9 million for their GOP counterparts.
In the House, Democrats and Republicans were dead even at about $10.8 million apiece entering October. But there, too, Democrats outpaced Republicans in September, $2.1 million to $1.6 million.
A major Democratic advantage is Kaine, who remains popular, and his political action committee - Moving Virginia Forward. It has raised and doled out about $2.25 million to Democratic legislative candidates this year.
And there's also a popular - and wealthy - former governor, Mark R. Warner, whose One Virginia PAC has spent about $1.4 million to help Democrats and their independent allies.
The only Republican leadership PAC in the top three was House Speaker William J. Howell's Dominion Leadership Trust, which has received nearly $1.5 million this year and spent slightly less than $1 million aiding Republicans House candidates.
Among the two state parties, the Democratic Party received about $3.4 million while the Republican Party slightly less than $2.2 million so far this year.
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