In late October, here’s one way to spot a nervous incumbent: a heavy flow of last-minute campaign contributions. Two House Republicans — Lynn Jenkins of Kansas and Lee Terry of Nebraska — are among the leading congressional recipients of PAC contributions this month, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Ms. Jenkins, who faces Margie Wakefield in Kansas’ Second Congressional District race, leads in the few polls of the race, but none have her over 50 percent in a district she won with 57 percent of the vote in 2012. As of Thursday afternoon, she had pulled in at least $117,500 in PAC contributions in October, the most of any House candidate.
Mr. Terry, facing Brad Ashford, a state senator, in Nebraska’s Second Congressional District, came in third in PAC contributions in that period, receiving more than $104,300. For perspective, both those sums are larger than the $79,000 that PACs had put into the high-profile race of Thom Tillis, the Republican Senate candidate in North Carolina.
(In between the two is Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who pulled in $108,350 from PACs this month. Mr. Upton’s seat is safe, according to the Cook Political Report, but he has been a recent target of an outside spending campaign from the Mayday PAC, which advocates campaign finance reform.)
In addition to the PAC money, Ms. Jenkins is a leading House recipient of individual contributions since Oct. 15, when campaigns are required to report any donations of $1,000 or more within 48 hours. She has gotten more than $151,000 in these late donations from other individuals. Mr. Terry is No. 11 on the individual donor list, pulling in at least $80,600.
Donations are coming from corporate and trade association PACs, but also from their House colleagues; Ms. Jenkins has received late contributions from at least 30 congressional campaign or leadership committees, and Mr. Terry from at least 23.
Midterm Elections 2014
The latest news, analysis and election results for the 2014 midterm campaign.
Why the last-minute push for cash? After winning comfortably in 2010, Mr. Terry has had fairly narrow victories, said Randall Adkins, a professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. “This is not a safe district for a Republican,” Mr. Adkins said in a telephone interview. “There’s a 50/50 chance that Terry could lose this time.”
The combination of Mr. Terry’s own missteps, a credible opponent in Mr. Ashford and a minimum-wage initiative that could increase Democratic turnout among Omaha’s voters make the race highly competitive, Mr. Adkins said. “If I were working in his campaign, I’d put this money into the ground game,” he said.
Ms. Jenkins, whose district covers the eastern portion of Kansas outside the Kansas City suburbs, is considered less likely to lose by most election watchers (Cook rates her seat as “Likely Republican”). But redistricting removed a portion of her previous district, including the city of Manhattan and Fort Riley, an Army base, and her opponent has been a successful fund-raiser. Chapman Rackaway, a Fort Hays State University political science professor, described Ms. Jenkins as “playing prevent defense: she let Wakefield get close, but she won’t let her score.”
“Jenkins will probably hold on, but she has the smallest G.O.P. registration numbers among the state delegation, so if there’s anyone who one would think would be challenged, Jenkins is it,” he wrote in an email.
Kansas’ electoral environment this year also might be influencing Ms. Jenkins’s late fund-raising. With Republican incumbents in tight races for governor and the Senate, Ms. Wakefield has sought to tie Ms. Jenkins to Sam Brownback, the governor who is facing criticism over income tax cuts that have led to a budget shortfall.