Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Pennsylvania Special Election: Money and Ideology

The Democrats have won by a few hundred votes. We won't know the final count for I guess a week. FiveThirtyEight says we should be worried. Fine. Let's worry.

But let's look at some figures. Conor Lamb spent $3,031,838 to Saccone's $613,357. The average victor of a midterm election spends $1.6 million. In 2016 Tim Murphy spent $1.1 million. So Conor Lamb won by spending double the money that normally gets spent.

Can the Democrats replicate that sort of spending on a national level?

At the moment, it appears that Democrats have a slight lead in the money game. Republican candidates have raised $200 million. Democrats have raised $224.5 million. In the last midterm, Republican candidates raised around $86 million more than Democrats.

Finally, why should I worry? Conor Lamb is a DINO. If that's what Democrats have to do to win, becoming more conservative, fine by me.

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