Outside groups launch $8M campaign to boost House GOP

Two big Republican outside spending groups are launching their first major fall campaign, spending $8 million on polling and advertising in nine targeted House races.

American Action Network (AAN) and its affiliated super-PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), are targeting largely offensive opportunities for the GOP, spending in only one district, where the party is defending its hold on a seat.

AAN is launching the groups’ largest buy, $1.2 million, to target Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) with cable and digital ads for the entire month of October. It’s spending another $1 million each targeting Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.) and Joe Garcia (D-Fla.) with TV and digital ads for part of October, and Reps. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.) and Ami Bera (D-Calif.) will both be hit with $750,000 in ads from the group.

American Action Network is also spending $600,000 against Rep. Rick Nolan (D-Minn.) and $500,000 against Rep. Pete Gallego (D-Texas), while the CLF is spending another $500,000 on ads targeting the latter, and the groups will spend another $350,000 on polling in that district. The Congressional Leadership Fund is also spending half a million against Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), and $1 million to defend Virginia’s 10th District, a swing district left open with the retirement of Rep. Frank Wolf (R), where Democrats are hoping for a pickup.

It’s the groups’ first major foray into the midterm elections, and it comes as Republican groups focused on House races have largely been outspent by Democrats. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has consistently outraised its GOP counterpart. The cash advantage allows the DCCC to reserve about $14 million more in fall airtime than the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the Democratic House Majority PAC has invested $20 million in House races this cycle.

Still, it’s unlikely Democrats will pick up the 17 seats they’d need to take back the House this fall.

Dan Conston, communications director for American Action Forum and the Congressional Leadership Fund, acknowledged that “the left may very well outspend the right on the House” this cycle, but the groups’ $8 million effort is “a big step forward in cutting their financial advantage.”

“Two-thousand-fourteen races are being fought out nearly entirely in Democrat-held districts and these are some of the most competitive races that will decide what type of majority Speaker Boehner will have,” he said in a statement. “All these candidates are center-right rising stars who can win and govern, and we’re poised to play a decisive role just when voters are making decisions.”