The Democrat National Committee Is Running In The Red

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Written By:
Rob Port

Oct 10, 2012
10:00am

Republicans ran into this problem in 2010 under then-Chairman Michael Steele, and many blame a downsized RNC get-out-the-vote effort with dampening the GOP resurgence in that cycle. Now it’s the Democrats who have the fundraising problem, with the DNC currently operating in the red:

The Democratic National Committee had more debt than cash on hand when the general election started in September, a troubling fact few people have noticed to this point in the campaign.

We already knew that the Republican National Committee had more than 10 times as much cash as the DNC while the party’s were holding their conventions, but a closer look at the DNC’s August report shows it also took out $8 million in loans during that month — which means it had more debt ($11.8 million) than cash on hand ($7.1 million).

The Obama campaign itself is well funded, but Obama isn’t the only Democrat on the ticket. Democrats are fighting to hold the Senate, and make up ground in the House, and if the party’s ability to do the sort of baseline politicking (getting out the vote, for the most part, at this stage in the game) candidates count on is compromised they’re in a lot of trouble.

Particularly in states like North Dakota, where Heidi Heitkamp is running a better-than-expected race against Rick Berg but will need help from her national party if she hopes to keep the state’s Senate seat in Democrat hands.

This is particularly important as Republican enthusiasm surges. According to a recent Pew poll, Republicans are a lot more enthusiastic and a lot more engaged this time around than Democrats:

Fueling his current polling surge, Mitt Romney’s numbers with indies are just getting remarkably good.

a. IBD/ITP poll released today: Romney 52% Obama 34%.

b. Pew poll, released yesterday: Romney 46% Obama 42%.

c. Politico/GW poll, released yesterday: Romney 51% Obama 35%.

d. CNN, released last week: Romney 49% Obama 41%.

e. National Journal, released October 3: Romney 49% Obama 41%.

Now having said that, Romney has done well this entire cycle with independents, but not enough to overcome turnout models that suggested much, much higher Democratic turnout.

If Democrats hope to hold the Senate and the White House (there’s no question they’ll remain in the minority in the House), they’re going to need enough voter turnout from their base to offset Romney’s advantages with independents and with enthusiasm among the Republican base. It’s possible – as is noted above turnout models show a Democrat advantage – but it’s a lot less likely with the party, the primary driver of voter turnout efforts, running in the red.