The title of Most Expensive Midterm Election can obscure the fact that campaigns raise and spend money very differently.
Yes, television advertising is still the largest line item in nearly every federal campaign’s budget, and it will remain so through 2016 and beyond. But television advertising is being changed by access to new data about viewership, while spending on digital formats is on the rise.
“Super PACs” are here to stay, but they also are different than they were four years ago. In some cases they operate as a part of the party structure, in others as hubs for a growing network of donors. Get-out-the-vote work, once the province of the parties and labor unions, has expanded to include other advocacy organizations that have formed their own turnout operations.
So while this election, like every one before it in recent times, featured record amounts of spending, it’s worth paying attention to how that money was spent and the changes affecting the election system. Here’s why: Those changes will allow groups to reach voters with more specific political messages, which can harden partisans’ views but also potentially bring together new and perhaps unlikely voting coalitions.
In effect, the political parties, which have been a dominant organizing principle in American elections, have new competition for both existing voters and new audiences. The changes give other organizations not just the ability to deliver a barrage of television advertisements, but also, and far more important, the opportunity to develop their relationships with voters in a deeper way.
In the 2012 congressional elections, the committees that made the most independent expenditures were national party committees. This year, it was the Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC offshoot of the Democratic Party. It spent at least $69.7 million directly on races. It and the House Majority PAC, as well as the Congressional Leadership Fund, which backed House Republicans, have become fixtures in campaigns. (Senate Republicans opted for a “let a dozen super PACs bloom” approach in their races this year, a change from 2010, when the American Crossroads PACs did the heavy lifting.)
The same could be true of the Chamber of Commerce, which for the first time waded into direct advocacy. It has disclosed that it has spent more than $35 million.
While Citizens United remains the law of the land, there is little chance that business and union groups that have formed super PACs will not opt to use them. The American Chemistry Council, a trade association, began making independent expenditures in the 2010 election and reported $1.9 million in spending in this one.
Other super PACs have become like political banks for state organizations. NextGen Climate Action, the super PAC funded almost entirely by Thomas F. Steyer, a billionaire hedge fund manager and philanthropist, not only spent directly in races but also put millions into environmental organizations around the nation. NextGen Climate Action raised $76.1 million through Oct. 15.
The Movers
While Mr. Steyer’s largess — he is the top overall donor to super PACs since they were created — has generated headlines, the fund-raising clout of other environmental organizations has also grown. The League of Conservation Voters 501(c)(4) arm and super PAC both spent more than $9 million this cycle in congressional races, more than three times what the group spent in 2012. The Sierra Club spent $1.5 million.
Combined with NextGen Climate Action, the environmental movement had its biggest independent spending this cycle: $47 million. Should Republicans take the Senate majority, it would give environmental groups a focus for rallying supporters during the next two years.
Although it waited until the campaign’s final months to start collecting donations, Freedom Partners Action Fund, backed by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, spent more on campaigns this cycle than did American Crossroads, the veteran Republican super PAC. Freedom Partners topped $21 million in independent expenditures, as did the Ending Spending Action Fund, another alternative to the Republican establishment.
Other groups expanded their voter turnout operations, including Americans for Prosperity, another Koch-backed nonprofit that claimed a network of more than 500 paid staff members across 32 states. (The group is not required to file spending reports outside of certain broadcast advertisements, so it is unknown exactly how much the group spent on its field work.)
Planned Parenthood created an affiliate called Community Outreach Group that runs door-to-door canvassing operations and hires campaign staff for local Planned Parenthood organizations and its national political wings. Planned Parenthood’s super PAC spent nearly $1.5 million for turnout work this cycle.
The Digital Frontier
Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, probably did not need to advertise on Pandora, the online streaming music service. But he did so anyway in May, paying $6,750 to promote his re-election to the House of Representatives.
Spending on digital platforms like Facebook is now normal; nearly 500 federal candidates and committees reported direct payments to the social media company this cycle, and the national party committees paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for advertising on it.
But other, smaller services — both social media platforms and tools used to oversee them — are attracting attention, and money, from political campaigns. Twitter, which has a smaller audience than Facebook but teems with political messages, is one option for advertising dollars. TrendPo, which specializes in posting replies on social media platforms for political organizations, and HootSuite, which provides social media management, are being used to help campaigns keep track of their online activity.
“There’s greater investment on both sides of the aisle,” said Brian Donahue, a partner at Craft Media/Digital, a Republican firm that does both traditional advertising and online work for political campaigns and corporate clients. “It used to be only young people were reachable via mobile and online, but older people are now on social media and using smartphones. It’s become not just a choice but critical.”
A growing number of firms sell online services, including advertising, data management and social media consulting. Campaigns and committees can buy a voter file and have it “enhanced” with additional demographic and political information by a number of firms like Haystaq DNA, founded by former staff members of President Obama’s 2008 campaign.
Republican committees can make targeted advertising buys via i360, a Koch brothers-backed firm that assigns scores to individual voters based on the likelihood they oppose abortion or government spending. A relatively small number of campaigns use these services now; that number should grow during the next two years.
