The Big Picture: Obama, Dems Likely To Vastly Outpace Republicans In Fundraising
We now know that the Obama campaign and the DNC had a very good fundraising month for June, banking a total of $92 million in cash on hand -- putting them very close to the $102 million that John McCain and the GOP have between them.
But the more important long-term question is this: Which team is now raising money at a faster rate? What does the overall picture tell us about what things will look like later this fall?
We took a close look at the last six months of numbers, and here's our conclusion: Though the GOP got a big, big head start in fundraising while the Dems were still duking it out, the June fundraising numbers leave little doubt that the Dems are on track to vastly outpace the Republicans -- meaning the Dem team is almost certain to overtake the collective Republican machine in cash on hand by as soon as next month.
According to a McCain campaign conference call last week, the collective cash on hand of the McCain campaign, the RNC and state campaign committees adds up to $102 million as of the end of June.
On the Dem side, June brought Obama to a total cash on hand of $72 million, and the DNC at $20 million -- putting them at a total of $92 million.
So for starters, the McCain/GOP money advantage is already pretty small, given that they had months to get rolling.
Because the GOP money machine has been running on all cylinders for months now, we already have a pretty good idea of what they're taking in on a monthly basis: The RNC has been pulling in about $15-$25 million a month since McCain sewed up the Republican nomination.
During that period, the DNC was languishing at four or five million per month while their primary race was still ongoing. But the DNC was able to bring in nearly $20 million in the month immediately following Obama's clinching of the nomination -- close to parity with the RNC's monthly pace.
It's likely that the DNC will keep this pace up and then some going forward. So the DNC will very likely be able to come close to balancing out the RNC's fundraising.
What's more, whatever disparity exists between the DNC and RNC fundraising is likely to be more than made up for by Obama's all-but-certain advantage over McCain.
Since clinching the nomination, McCain has been fundraising at a comparatively sluggish pace. He raised only $11.5 million in February, $15.4 million in March, $18.5 million in April, $21.5 million in May, and $22 million in June.
Meanwhile, Obama raised $52 million in June -- an advantage far bigger than the one the RNC had over the DNC for the same month, and in fact more than McCain and the RNC took in for the month combined.
Bottom line: If the Obama and McCain campaigns, and the DNC and RNC, continue on their current pace, the Obama/DNC team will overtake the McCain/RNC team by as early as next month, and continue building on its lead in the months to follow.
Let's bleed McCain to death in Virginia. It will be his Sommes. Kerry states + OH = victory. We'll have NM/CO/NV/MT/IA for dessert.
July 18, 2008 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly right. VA may not end up going for us (although it will certainly be very very close either way), but if we force McCain to compete there while investing properly in states like Ohio (leaving out Florida, which is a mess), we'll be in strong shape. IA is already ours, and I think CO and NM will be too.
July 18, 2008 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I want and desire the total fruitition of the fifty state solution . . . I can imagine a world where McCain can't even WINce Ari-farging-zona.
Everyday the map at http://electoral-vote.com/ looks a little bluer everyday.
July 18, 2008 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is another site with a more detailed analysis (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/) but yes, it keeps getting bluer.
Who knew singing the blues was so much fun?
July 18, 2008 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
So the only branch of the Democratic brand that is currently behind its Republican counterpart is the DNC, yes?
Aren't the DSCC and the DCCC ahead of their counterparts?
And the enthusiasm gap is even wider.
Face it McCain/Republicans: the voters just aren't that into you this year.
July 18, 2008 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
More $$$$ is being donated directly to specific candidates.
July 18, 2008 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do McCain and sluggish pace seem to fit so well together?
July 18, 2008 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because he doesn't know what Viagra does.
July 18, 2008 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
One caveat - the Dems unified (most of them) in June. I would be surprised and amazed if Obama could keep this pace up in July, especially when he's abroad for much of the month.
http://strategy08.wordpress.com
July 18, 2008 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
He'll keep it up if his supporters keep it up.
July 18, 2008 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
well, any july slowdown will be made up for fundraising during and after conventions
July 18, 2008 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
"abroad for much of the month"?
Huh?
It's July 18. There are 13 days left. Even if he left today, he'd have still been here for "much of the month".
I would argue that the fallout from FISA hasn't been felt yet, and that July's numbers might be lower due to that. I hope not, but it seems to me that June is too soon to tell if his vote affected fundraising.
July 18, 2008 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
huh?
'much' means a large portion, not necessarily the greatest portion. even if he was stateside for 'most' of the month he could still be abroad for 'much' of the month.
July 18, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not convinced. He'll be abroad, for what, 10 days? That's much of the month?
July 18, 2008 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think there is an important point worth remembering that highlights this disparity even more in the Dems favor:
McCain has opted for public financing. That should limit him even more. Essentially, the Dems have as much money NOW as McCain is allowed to spend from convention to November.
That should count for something? No?
July 18, 2008 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
What percentage of McCain's donors are maxed out?
July 18, 2008 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
what are the dnc/rnc caps?
July 18, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
around $22K, I believe.
July 18, 2008 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's a question I've been thinking about.
I'm not worried about the big McCain donors actually maxing out. The combined committee he's created between his campaign and the RNC allow individual donations of up to $70,000. I think he'll run out of big-dollar supporters before they run into that limit.
But is McCain repeating Hillary Clinton's fundraising mistakes? He's vacuuming up big donations now. Half of his total donations have come through bundlers who typically collect big checks, and even more of his donations have from high-dollar fundraising events. Even with the $70K limit, how often can McCain go back to these donors? I don't doubt that there are maybe 100,000 Republicans who will gladly scratch out a $4,600 check for McCain. But you gotta think the number willing to donate five, ten or fifteen times as much is a hell of a lot smaller.
Is that what pushed him to $22 million in June? This is just a gut feeling, but I think he's going to have the same problem Clinton did. If they're not legally maxed out he's still going to get everything a large donor is willing to give early and he's going to struggle to raise money later in the summer, and possibly even after the convention unless he shows real signs of being in a position to win this thing.
July 18, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Any word on how well individual members of congress are doing? That should add into the equation, no?
July 18, 2008 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
The question keeps coming up, but we don't seem to get it resolved -- how much of the DNC / RNC money will go into the presidential race? It would seem a fairly simple task to go back and look at the patterns over the last few elections to come up with a rough percentage of how those funds have been allocated in the recent past. Is that something Greg or Eric can figure out for us? It'd be nice having a definitive answer.
July 18, 2008 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think you can look at past years and get an idea of where either national committee is going to spend its money this year.
The mission of the DNC has been totally overhauled since the 2004 election. This year they are going to play a very small role in the presidential election. Dean feels the DNC should concentrate on party building at the state and local levels and Obama's campaign has endorsed that vision. They're going to be working together on voter registration, developing a database to reach likely Democratic voters for races up and down the ballot and GOTV, but the DNC isn't going to be much of a presence in the presidential race.
What the RNC is going to do is is less certain. Right now they say and act like they will use all of their money to get John McCain elected, even though the House and Senate R's are in so much trouble and have so little money compared to the Dems that they are expected to lose more seats than they did two years ago. It's one thing if they lose open seats, or if vulnerable members like Ted Stevens and Don Young look like they'll lose. But if establishment Republicans in safe states get into trouble and McCain continues to lag far behind Obama in the electoral vote totals, you're going to see a massive amount of pressure put on the RNC to help save those seats. A lot of Congressional Republicans don't like John McCain to begin with, and if it comes down to their careers versus a race he can't win, it will get ugly fast.
July 18, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
In one report it said Obama has 800 full time staffers at a cost of upwards of $40M per month. He could run into money problems really quickly is there is any truth to that.
Also McCain gets his $82M public funding egg after the GOP convention in early September. So basically he has two months to spend all of that. Barack will have to raise $41M in each of those months just to keep up.
McCain of course is gaming the system right now spending primary money while running his GE campaign.
July 18, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
the average staffer pulls in 50k/month?
sign me up.
July 18, 2008 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
McShame better have more than some CHANGE he can believe in!
July 18, 2008 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did I miss a decimal point in my math? $40,000,000 divided by 800 staff is $50,000 a month. Obama's *average* staff salary is over half a million a year? Seems unlikely.
July 18, 2008 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read something yesterday that argued that the funding situation for McCain was not as grim once the presidential race proper begins and that Obama and the DNC have to raise funds at a rather astonishing pace.
Like Smiley, I think there is something murky about the funding numbers once the primaries are officially history. More clarity about this might be helpful, especially for those involved in grassroots fund raising efforts. As far as the race goes, the last few months is important, no?
July 18, 2008 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah it looks like I misread. The 800-person staff is burning through more than $40M/month running the whole campaign from soup to nuts, was not referencing their pay (which of course is included in the number). I should have caught my mistake with rudimentary math alarm bells going off.
July 18, 2008 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Also McCain gets his $82M public funding egg after the GOP convention in early September."
Yeah, yeah, I know, we're not supposed to slag 'public financing'. Nonsense, it's broken, and most people don't understand it anyway.
Here's the reality:
John McCain is taking $82 million from the pockets of the American taxpayer to finance his run for president. Barack Obama is taking $0 taxpayer dollars to run for president.
Let's say that again. John McCain is being paid $82 million by the taxpayers to run for president. Barack Obama's compaign for the presidency is entirely funded by the private contributions of over two million supporters, the vast majority of which are less than $100.
What's wrong with this picture?
July 18, 2008 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Couple of points on DNC fundraising/spending.
One I would think a lot of the gap between DNC & RNC Cash on Hand is DUH, because Dean spent a lot of money establishing the basis for the 50 State Strategy with real people on the ground with real offices whereas the RNC is following its traditional strategy of holding back money for targetted advertising.
That is when Obama clinched and subsequently took over the DNC (for all practical purposes) he inherited an established field network. To say that the DNC is going to 'play a very small in the Presidential election' sort of ignores the fact that a lot of organizing (like GOTV) that traditionally would have had to be done by the campaign has now been done in advance, and in part paid for by the DNC. Plus every voter induced to vote Democrat based on any down level ticket campaign is an almost certain vote for Obama. In a way the DNC has served as the advance team for whichever candidate clinched the deal, General Election spending before the General Election even happened.
Two, and I am sure others have made this point, large fractions of that quadrupling of DNC take from May to June has to have been the result of Obama explicitly asking his supporters to contribute to the DNC. He probably could have grabbed up much of that $22 million, instead he seems to understand that every dollar spent on the 50 State strategy is short term or long term good for President Obama. Redistricting is coming right in the middle of his first term, every state legislature that is controlled by Democrats makes 2012 an easier proposition. He doesn't have to take a Red states electoral vote to end up a net winner in that state, some extra Democratic state reps here and there might make all the difference for the whole decade to come. And the DNC is the right vehicle to make that generic Deomocratic effort happen
July 19, 2008 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bruce Webb [above] is correct on all his points. I have a few supplementary comments.
The Obama campaign, since it started about 18 months ago, has been exceptional in its financial management. Can anyone name any period (after the first three months) when it was short of the financial resources to do what it needed to do? The answer is no--it always had the financial resources to deal with any crisis--or potential crisis. This is the best financially managed, Democratic, Presidential campaign since those managed by Steve Smith for his brothers in law--and it may have surpassed those. Axelrod is "notorious" in the consultant community for being a tightwad. Obama and Clinton raised almost the same amount of money in 2007 but in January Clinton was essentailly bankrupt and Obama had the funds to go through January and February EVEN if he had not raised a penny in January and February. The key difference is how they spent in 2007: Clinton squadered money on staff and consultants paying massive salaries. Obama paid his staff reasonable salaries and kept a tight lid on expenses (his press person was paid $12000/month while Wolfson via his consulting company got $250000/month; Obama staff only got reimbursed for travel to and from the Chicago airports if they took public transit (cabs they had to pay for themselves) while I am certain that the Arlington, VA, cabs and limos are in morning over the demise of the Clinton campaign). Obama spent money in 2007 training operatives and dispatching them to state after state--some even went into Idaho in October 2007.
Obama and his folks have had a financial plan and have stuck with it. The carping is coming from Democratic consultants who are in shock that there is no financial gravy train and if hired are paid what they deserve rather than what they hope for and from the Republicans who are trying to create an atmosphere that Obama has money trouble so they can raise funds for the RNC and McCain--i.e., McCain ahs a chance. The MSM has completely missed the real story for some or all of the folowing: they are financially illiterate; they have no understanding of campaign financial management; the topic is too boring to learn and too boring to get them on cable TV; their sources are consultants who are being cut off the gravy train or are fearfull of being cut off in the future if other candidates also figure this out; they are too dumb to know they are being manipulated by their Republican sources--Faux News excepted.
You must remember that McCain almost had to drop out because he squandered millions on consultants in 2007. He still has not put together a campaign infrastructure for the fall despite having a free ride for the past three months.
The real story is the brillance of Obama's campaign financial management. I will hazrd to predict that in the last half of October the Republicans will be in financial trouble in the Pesidential and will not have the half the GOTV effort we usually see from them.
July 19, 2008 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink