The North Dakota Democrats continue to dominate Republicans in fundraising. They’ve widened the gap over Republicans in their year-end report for 2013 to more than a quarter million dollars, or $265,325.49 to be exact.
Here’s the chart showing cumulative fundraising, cycle-to-date (all data from FEC.gov):
Republicans are doing a little better than Democrats in terms of the source of their money, but not much. In 2013, the NDGOP got nearly 90% of its money from in state but Democrats were at nearly 97%. And in total dollars from in state, out of state and unreported (contributions under the minimum amount required to be reported) Democrats are killing it compared to Republicans:
Demcorats also outraised Republicans in dollars from political action committees. Democrats raked in $47,110 while Republicans got a paltry $2,100.
Most of the Democrat PAC money came from groups affiliated with their past/present federal office holders (Senator Heitkamp, former Senators Conrad and Dorgan):
Republicans, meanwhile, got not much from mostly in-state PACs:
Republicans in the state tell me that a comparison of NDGOP fundraising to Demcorat-NPL fundraising isn’t apples-to-apples. The Democrats have exactly zero statewide incumbents on the ballot this year. Thus, Republican fundraising is split among the candidates while Democrat fundraising, in the absence of any declared statewide candidates for 2014, is going to the party.
That’s a fair point, but in the 2012 cycle the situation really wasn’t any different (Democrats has no incumbents, Republicans had lots), and the NDGOP is way behind. So far in the 2014 cycle they’re a little over $30,000 behind where they were in 2012:
Meanwhile, North Dakota Democrats are up over $148,000:
If there’s a silver lining in all of this, it’s that North Dakota Democrats are spending the money about as fast as they raise it. Democrats ended the year with $32,743 in cash on hand, while Republicans weren’t really that far behind at $8,777.
Still, at some point all this activity by the Democrat state party, and the lack of activity by Republicans, is going to have an impact on election outcomes. Perhaps even this year. And Republicans know it, given how often I hear party members and party elected officials gripe about the party itself.
