The 2014 congressional contests are on track to be the most expensive midterm elections in history, according to a new report from the Center for Responsive Politics, which projects that nearly $4 billion will be spent by candidates, parties and outside groups by Election Day.
Candidates and parties are projected to spend about $2.7 billion, while outside spenders — chiefly “super PACs” and political nonprofit organizations — will spend about $900 million. In 2012, in the midst of President Obama’s re-election campaign, total outside spending reached $1.3 billion.
The total does not include additional money spent on so-called issue ads and get-out-the vote activities, which outside groups and labor unions are not required to report to the Federal Election Commission. All told, 2014 spending is projected to exceed by $333 million the amount spent in 2010, but will be roughly on par with the $3.6 billion spent on congressional races during the presidential election cycle in 2012.
Conservative and pro-Republican forces are on track to spend at least $1.92 billion, while liberal and pro-Democratic groups will spend somewhat less, about $1.76 billion. Those totals may significantly underestimate the gap, however: About three-quarters of all political advertising in this cycle benefiting Republicans has flowed through groups that are not required to disclose their finances, compared with about a quarter of all advertising benefiting Democrats.
Representative Don Young, Republican of Alaska, at the Capitol in July.Credit J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
Representative Don Young, the 81-year-old Republican from Alaska, is taking irascible to new heights this election season, offending high school students who recently lost a classmate to suicide by suggesting that the suicide was a result of a lack of support from friends and family, and making veiled physical threats to his Democratic opponent.
The incident with the students is getting a lot of attention today via The Alaska Dispatch News, but it is very unlikely to derail his bid for a 21st term. National Democrats have not been involved in the race, and President Obama is very unpopular in the state.
Plus, Mr. Young has survived many a turbulent episode, including an ethics investigation, the use of a racial slur, general obstreperousness and a very close primary against a credible Republican challenger in 2008. So he is most likely on his way back to Congress, but at some point this might all eventually catch up with him.
Jim Wilson rolling up the American flags on the back of his truck in 2012.Credit Ty William Wright for The New York Times
If the dirt-spattered 2003 Chevy Silverado pickup toting three-foot “Ernst for Senate” signs looks familiar to Iowans, well, that’s because it is.
The truck belongs to Jim Wilson, the pipe-smoking and friendly-yet-foulmouthed “superfan” of Mitt Romney. Mr. Wilson was Mr. Romney’s most loyal, visible and assiduous supporter, traveling more than 100,000 miles in his white pickup as a campaign volunteer in 2012, handing out signs and directing traffic. Many of those miles were racked up in Iowa, which is just 310 miles long (Illinois to Nebraska) and 200 miles wide (Minnesota to Missouri).
The self-proclaimed “helpless” political addict is now following State Senator Joni Ernst’s campaign against Representative Bruce Braley. He’s a volunteer with no official connection to the campaign, but he always seems to be at the right place.
Mr. Wilson’s methods remain the same as in 2012. He parks outside a campaign event, the truck-bed-size signs acting as mobile billboards to signal which Pizza Ranch that Ms. Ernst might be visiting. (The restaurants are beloved in Iowa and have strong ties to the Christian right.) He then proceeds to mingle, mixing political war stories and off-color jokes with his message.
By Mr. Wilson’s count, he has visited six states that are holding midterm elections to volunteer for Republicans “who are electable, not loons,” he said. “I’m going to do my little bit.” This bit of wisdom was followed by a few unprintable words, a hearty cough and a waft of vanilla oak pipe tobacco. He says he keeps 30 pipes on the dash of his truck.
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Joni Ernst — the Republican Senate nominee in Iowa and the woman who brought the political world “Squeal,” an ad comparing castrating pigs to cutting wasteful spending in Washington — is back with her own porcine version of Mad Libs.
In her new 30-second commercial, released Wednesday, Ms. Ernst finds herself in familiar territory, standing in a pigpen as she says, “It’s a mess — dirty, noisy and it stinks.” Then, she clarifies: “Not this lot, I’m talking about the one in Washington.”
And then she moves in for the real punch line.
“Too many typical politicians, hogging, wasting and full of ….” Ms. Ernst says, leaving the viewer to fill in the blank, as a pig’s squeal replaces the likely expletive.
“Well, let’s just say, bad ideas,” she concludes with a smile.
Campaign phones at a Republican headquarters in El Dorado, Ark.Credit William Widmer for The New York Times
You can depend on the phone to ring during dinner in election season, only to hear a candidate’s recorded voice.
Which also means it is time for a warning from the Federal Communications Commission that political auto-dialed calls, recorded voice calls and text messages must comply with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. An enforcement advisory was issued on Tuesday.
The telephone protection act forbids auto-dialed live calls or recorded voice calls to wireless phones without consent. Calls to landline phones, whether live or recorded, are also subject to certain restrictions. The sponsor of the call must be identified at the beginning of the call, and the caller’s telephone number must be provided.
Penalties can run up to $16,000 per violation.
On Tuesday, citing a $3 million fine it leveled this year against Dialing Services LLC for unsolicited robocalls to cellphones, the F.C.C. was telling the political class, in essence, to watch out: “We are closely monitoring this space.”
The governor’s races in four states — Connecticut, Florida, Colorado and Kansas — are neck and neck with less than two weeks to go before Election Day, according to new polls, while the governor of New York continues to enjoy a substantial advantage over his rivals.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut is virtually tied with his Republican challenger, Thomas C. Foley, while Gov. Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, has the same amount of support from likely voters as former Gov. Charlie Crist, his Democratic rival, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.
In both states, Republicans strongly support their party’s candidate, while Democrats do the same. But independents are closely divided. In Florida, 11 percent of independents backed Adrian Wyllie, a Libertarian who received 7 percent over all. And in Connecticut, they gave 16 percent of their support to Joe Visconti, an independent who got 9 percent over all. The margin of sampling error for both telephone surveys is plus or minus three percentage points.
The seven-percentage-point advantage that Gov. John W. Hickenlooper has over his Republican challenger, Bob Beauprez, in a Monmouth University poll released Tuesday is not significant because it is within the poll’s five-point margin of sampling error, which applies to both candidates. Similarly, in the Monmouth University poll of likely voters in Kansas, the five-point advantage of Paul Davis, the Democratic challenger, over Gov. Sam Brownback, the incumbent, is within the poll’s margin of sampling error of plus or minus five percentage points.
By contrast, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has a comfortable 21-point advantage over Rob Astorino, the Republican challenger, according to the latest Siena College poll of likely voters released Wednesday. The Green Party candidate, Howie Hawkins, received 9 percent, and 4 percent were undecided.
Karl Rove at the Republican National Convention in 2012.Credit Josh Haner/The New York Times
With the Senate race in Colorado tightening, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads groups have pummeled Senator Mark Udall, the Democratic incumbent, with millions of dollars in negative ads. Crossroads begins its biggest assault on Wednesday: a $3.5 million barrage attacking Mr. Udall’s national security credentials.
The ad, the last one that Crossroads plans to air in Colorado before Election Day, features a mother of five who is also a Marine — a powerful messenger in a state where women are likely to decide the race between Mr. Udall and the Republican nominee, Representative Cory Gardner.
“As a mom and a Marine, I know the danger is closer to home than Senator Udall seems to think,” she says.
Crossroads is going big with the ad. The $3.5 million it is spending on it is more than one-third of the $9.5 million that the group has spent in the state since Labor Day.
Mr. Udall’s once-sizable advantage among women voters has shrunk as his campaign, which overwhelmingly focused on birth control and abortion rights, appears to have alienated some voters. The latest CNN poll put Mr. Udall’s lead among women at 9 percentage points. But he is also losing among men by 20 points.
Ben Bradlee in 1971. Mr. Bradlee, the former Washington Post editor, died on Tuesday at age 93.Credit Mike Lien/The New York Times
Good Wednesday morning from Washington, where Republicans have a 66 percent chance of claiming control of the Senate with midterm elections 13 days away. President Obama is meeting with his new Ebola “czar,” while big-name Republicans such as Representative Paul D. Ryan and Senator Rand Paul are barnstorming battleground states. But many in Washington will be looking back on the life of a journalism legend.
We were still at work in the Washington bureau on Tuesday night when word arrived that the Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, who led the newspaper during Watergate and Vietnam, had died.
The news set off a flood of memories among those of us who knew him.
Elisabeth Bumiller, the Times deputy bureau chief, recalled her job interview with Mr. Bradlee in 1979. She was 23 and applying for a position covering parties for the Style section.
And Mr. Bradlee was already a legend.
“I was terrified,” Ms. Bumiller said. “I came down from Columbia Journalism School just before graduation. I was ushered into Ben’s office. He said: ‘Listen, kid, I’m just concerned that you are really young. This is a whole new city. Do you even know the names of the people in the cabinet?’ I said, ‘Oh, yes, I do.’ It was a total lie. Ben said to me, ‘I don’t believe you, kid, but you’re hired.’ “
Ms. Bumiller worked at The Post for five years and said it was “a thrilling place when he was around.”
It was Ms. Bumiller’s job to cover the Washington social scene, and she would occasionally run into Mr. Bradlee and his wife, Sally Quinn, who were among the city’s most sought-after party guests.
“I covered a party at Katharine Graham’s house once,” Ms. Bumiller said, referring to The Post’s publisher. “She had a party for President Reagan, when he was still president-elect. It was a tradition. All the reporters were outside her house on R Street. It was really cold out. Ben and Sally were inside. So he came out and said: ‘Kid, I feel really bad for you, it’s freezing out there.’ And he gave me the keys to his car. So I sat in his car with the heat on because I had to cover people coming and going to the party.”
Ms. Bumiller added: “He was like a character out of a movie. Not just women, men loved him, too. He was so dashing.”
From the tone of this year’s campaigns, you’d be forgiven if you thought the states with the closest elections were bleak landscapes unchanged since the Great Recession.
Yet on Tuesday, the monthly state jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the last one before Nov. 4 – showed that not to be true.
In Colorado, where the Democratic governor, John W. Hickenlooper, is in a dead heat for re-election and Senator Mark Udall, also a Democrat, is trailing, the unemployment rate dropped to a healthy 4.7 percent. (The national rate is 5.9 percent.)
The news from Florida wasn’t as good. Still, unemployment is at 6.1 percent, down from 6.9 percent a year ago, but Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, doesn’t seem to be benefiting.
Illinois? Its unemployment rate went to 6.6 percent from 9.1 percent in a year — the largest drop in the country — but the Democratic governor, Pat Quinn, is struggling.
In Michigan, unemployment is down to 7.2 percent from 8.8 percent a year ago. Yet the Republican governor, Rick Snyder, is clinging to a razor-thin lead in the polls.
Pennsylvania’s rate is 5.7 percent, and Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, is almost sure to lose.
Barreling toward Election Day, Democrats are sharpening their final attacks — on one another.
With control of the Senate on the verge of slipping away, the behind-the-scenes sniping has begun, and it is likely to spill into public view any day.
Congressional strategists argue that President Obama, who is unpopular in several battleground states, shouldn’t have reminded voters there that it is his policies that are on the ballot. They say that the White House’s handling of Ebola and terrorism has been a drag on Democratic campaigns. The president’s allies say candidates’ appeals to swing voters have come at the expense of energizing the Obama coalition of younger voters and minorities.
Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday that he expected the president would “get his fair share of credit” if Democrats held the majority.
“I’m also confident,” he said, “that if things don’t turn out the way that we hope and expect, that the president will get at least his share of the blame.”
President Obama meets with Ron Klain, his new Ebola “czar,” at 3 p.m. in the White House.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. heads to Chicago for a campaign rally with Representative Brad Schneider, Senator Richard J. Durbin and Paul Vallas, a candidate for lieutenant governor. He’ll also attend a private event there with Senator Mark Udall of Colorado.
A fiery Gov. Chris Christie seemed to be appealing to his party’s conservative base on Tuesday when he spoke at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. He told the crowd that he was “tired of hearing about the minimum wage,” that he would “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act and that the country had become “saps for the teachers’ union.”
Equally colorful, however, was the scene outside the speech, where two middle-aged men were waiting for the New Jersey governor, not to talk politics, but to seek his autograph. They were armed with baseballs, soccer balls, portraits and Sharpies.
One offered to sell this reporter a baseball with “Chris Christie” scrawled between the stitching.
“I like this one, but I could let it go for, like, $80?” he said.
The encounter led us to wonder: Which potential 2016 candidate’s signature is worth the most?
Leading all contenders is Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose signed Yankees jersey is going for $4,999.99. A signed page of a memoir in which she describes the moment she learned her husband had had an affair with Monica Lewinskyis listed at $1,799.10.
The News and Observer in Raleigh, N.C., sums up the unusual one-man debate when Senator Kay Hagan, as expected, did not turn up on Tuesday to face her challenger, Thom Tillis. Watch the opening moments.
Freedom Partners Action Fund, a “super PAC” with ties to the billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch, will broadcast $6.5 million worth of advertising in six states in the closing days of the election campaign, officials there said.
The advertising campaign, framed as a “closing argument,” seeks to link Democratic Senate candidates to President Obama, using what the group said were testimonials from residents in each state. The ads, which are running in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire and North Carolina, are slightly tailored to each state, but all end with a local resident arguing that a vote for the Democrat is a vote for Mr. Obama.
The effort is among a late flurry of attacks by Republican super PACs, which raised millions of dollars through the end of summer after struggling for much of the election cycle and have been looking for ways to spend the cash.
Freedom Partners was founded this summer to give the Kochs’ political network, which is built almost entirely around political nonprofit groups, a vehicle that could legally run hard-hitting election advertising. The group has spent at least $16 million on ads, all of them running since late August.
