Although Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman can credibly claim to have become a "fan favorite" among conservative activists nationwide, the situation is somewhat different in NY-23 itself. According to reports filed with the FEC that cover contributions through October 14th, Hoffman had raised only $12,610 from among 23 itemized donations within NY-23. This contrasts with Democrat Bill Owens, who had raised $151,520 from 245 itemized contributions within the district, and (to a lesser extent) with Dede Scozzafava, who raised $36,100 between 58 donations.
This analysis may lowball Hoffman's numbers somewhat, since it doesn't account for about $35,000 in unitemized contributions, some of which may come from NY-23, nor for any fundraising that Hoffman has done within the last two weeks (although the same is true of Scozzafava and Owens). And being unaffiliated with a major party, Hoffman obviously lacks some of the infrastructural advantages that a Democrat or a Republican might have. Conservative PACs, individual conservatives from across the country, and Hoffman himself are throwing plenty of money into this race on Hoffman's behalf -- so the cashflow hasn't really been a problem for him.
Still, this in some ways mirrors the situation in Maine, in which the No on 1 (pro-gay marriage) side has received a dramatically larger number of contributions from within the state. In both races, there are some rather significant differences between the pollsters, some of which project disproportionate turnout among conservatives while others do not. Obviously, conservatives are feeling pretty empowered at the national level -- but how will it translate into local politics? We won't really know until Tuesday -- but there is potentially something of a disconnect between projections of conservatives flooding the polls and these fundraising totals.
Democratic candidates, incidentally, have raised 57 percent of the money across all Congressional races thus far in the 2009-10 cycle, which is about the same as the 55 percent of the money they got in 2007-08.
11.01.2009
Local vs. National Conservative Grassroots
@ 9:32 PM
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16 comments
NATE
please do an election eve analysis of the Maine gay Marriage vote...
toss-up or ???
In all fairness, the social conservatives and Hoffman supporters don't tend to be the richest conservatives. And after seeing their home equity collectively disappear and their IRA's decimated in the past 12 months, I doubt many of them in Maine OR NY-23 have a lot of excess cash they'd like to donate to politicians.
Either way, the party that wins the fund-raising battle overall should be nicely favored to win actual elections. Good news.
I might add, as a resident of NY23, that the Owens supporters have suffered the same damage to their IRAs as the Hoffman supporters. This is not a wealthy district. There are more registered Republicans than Democrats in the district, so the disparity of the local fundraising difference seems even more interesting to me.
We are paying special attention to the election because my husband is running for office in our town. Our town is in the heart of St. Lawrence County in the center of the district. We are a blue collar town, with a median income significantly below state and national medians. Our registration statistics: 1080 voters, consisting of 462 Republicans, 367 Democrats, 166 no designation, 52 Independence, 16 Conservative, 17 other parties. There is no passion for Doug Hoffman in our town. We believe that there is only one Hoffman lawn sign up in the entire town.
I certainly will be staying up late on Tuesday night for the results. I live here, and I don't know what they will be.
thanks SCIFI
very interesting to hear what is happening on the ground. the media makes it sound as if it is all Hoffman, all the time
good luck on election night
RE: JUST JOHN:
While it's true that the poorest americans tend to be the most socially conservative, wealthy economic conservatives have generally thrown tons of money at social conservative causes and candidates because it helps keep the population divided and easier to control. (Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain)
That's true mike, but in this case, most of the establishment Republicans (by my reckoning) backed Scozz. Hoffman's most prominent backers have been the Palins and Huckabees, and any other endorsements they receive piggyback on that initial surge of support.
The interesting thing is that outside meddling in a local race often does not work well, but outside meddling in a proposition can be effective, since money matters more (personality is not the issue). So, the Maine proposition can be affected heavily by the influx of money (TV commercials) and even people making calls. We certainly saw that in California, although I do not think the outright lies pushed by the Mormon and Catholic church will play as well in Maine.
For Hoffman, he is already an outsider, so hard to say whether outside the district money matters anyway.
So I guess Nate has found a trend here that may prove trickle down economics does happen. Well, for conservative campaign contributions anyway.
Also consider the considerable monetary influence on the Prop 8 campaign in California last year.
Everyone remembers how Obama's fundraising prowess rewrote the record books last summer and fall... but few would have predicted that THIS year, for every $3 the R's raised, the D's would raise $4. If that advantage persists into 2010, all the usual CW about how the party in power suffers come midterms, all that can go out the window. Money isn't everything. But it cures a lot of ills. And stops a whole lot of so-called "waves."
DCM in FL…
I found this which shows a dead heat, but that was two weeks ago.
C’mon Nate. Tomorrow please put up a summary of what’s happening re: gay marriage in ME.
PRAG
thanks. my favorite is this one [featuring Nate & his projection a month out]:
http://outgaylife.com/in-the-news/featured/maine-featured-in-the-news/polling-wiz-says-gay-marriage-ban-is-underdog-in-maine
I am sure it will be close, and it never helps when a YES is a NO - but higher turnout in the larger towns & cities might benefit the cause...
Just John…
Yes, so far the “waves” exist only in Bart De Palma’s mind. He’s hoping to spin the fantasy into a reality.
Even if Hoffman is destroyed on Tuesday BDP will find a way to rationalize it.
PPP, one of the very best pollsters (and D to boot), says it's Hoffman by 16. For the reasons Nate gave, this is a very hard race to poll. However, I doubt they'd be so far off that Owens will win.
I think it's way to clever to see this as a good outcome. Together with some other results (e.g. GA Sen) it means that D's are slipping back into apathy.
Michael (mbw) said...
"I think it's way to clever to see this as a good outcome. Together with some other results (e.g. GA Sen) it means that D's are slipping back into apathy."
The GA Senate runoff was indeed a bad sign, but races since then have not been so bad. In fact, a House Race in an uberconservative LA district on the same day saw a Dem come within a couple hundred votes of winning.
Also Dems have already held seats in 3 special elections this year, IL-5, NY-20, and CA-32, with no major dropoff in Democratic voteshare.
I would say that if Owens comes within 5 points, Corzine wins or gets into recount territory, and we hold onto the legislature in NJ and don't lose much ground in VA, then Democrats are not in bad shape in 2010.
One thing I have not heard anyone talk about is that Hoffman looks scary. I can't decide if it's a Bambi-In-The-Headlights look or a look that says he might start snapping at and eating flies out of the air look. I'm not saying that he looks crazy because he's a Republican - there are many presnetable Republicans who have crazy ideas like Bob McDonnell in the Virginia Governor's race - but that he looks crazy no matter what his political affiliations.
I can't help but feel that this along with his poor performance in the debate and carpet-bagger status will take some votes away from him. After all all politics is local and they don't call it a beauty pagent for nothing.
The last bit of this post caught my attention. Dems have raised about the same percentage of funds across all congressional races this year as they did in 2008. But isn't this actually less than impressive? Money tends to flow toward incumbents - and there are a lot more of these on the Democratic side than there once were.
As for how these incumbents raise such cash, I notice no one on 538 has commented on the Post's bombshell over the weekend, that 30 Congressfolk (mostly Dems apparently) are under investigation by the ethics committee. This includes all of Murtha's gang - which is a scandal that matches the Abramoff mess. Still waiting for Pelosi to "drain the swamp".
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