George Sinner: National Democrats Aren't Giving Me Any Money

A reader sends in this report from a Democrat campaign stop in Jamestown:

I went to a Democrat event in Jamestown last night. It was one of those events where they have each of the local candidates (district 12 & 29) speak for five minutes as well as the statewide candidates, including Sinner and Taylor. The interesting part was that when George Sinner was speaking, he said that despite meeting all the fundraising and polling goals (didn’t say which poll), that he is not going to get any money from the DNC because they have too many other close elections nationally to fund. He was expecting $200,000 – $300,000, but instead will get nothing. He used this to try to get people to donate money, of course. But I think that just underscores what the real polling data is, which is not the 2 point lead he tried to pass off.

The reader is referring to the Mellman Group poll the Sinner campaign touted to select media/fundraising lists (the campaign has never released it officially). That poll showed Sinner with a two-point lead.

Since that poll was selectively released, two Cramer campaign polls have shown a 10 point lead for the Republican, and today a University of North Dakota poll commissioned by Forum Communications showed Cramer with a whopping 19-point lead.

Not even Cramer campaign people I spoke to feel their lead is 19 points, but they do feel comfortable predicting as much as a 10 point victory on election day.

But actions speak louder than words.

In 2012, when Senator Heidi Heitkamp was widely seen as an underdog to Republican Rick Berg, Democrats kept pouring money into her campaign. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spent millions getting Heitkamp elected, as did the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Clearly, they put their money where their mouths were, and they were right. Heitkamp had a path to victory. Indeed, she won that race, albeit by a razor-thin margin.

We’ll know more later this week when the campaigns file their FEC reports, but Sinner basically admitting that national Democrats have abandoned him isn’t a good sign.