24–25 July 2018 — 1410 mdt
The dismal history of Democratic fundraising for
Montana’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives
Updated. Pat Williams retired after the 1995–1997 session. Since then, no Democrat has been elected to serve as Montana’s lone representative in the U.S. House of Representatives. Nancy Keenan, in 2000, came the closest with 47.3 percent of the 2-party vote. She also came the closest to fundraising parity with her Republican opponent, Dennis Rehberg, raising 89.6 percent as much money as Rehberg raised.
Although Denise Juneau raised slightly more money in 2016, in 2018 dollars, than Keenan, she raised only 48.7 percent as much money as her Republican opponent, Ryan Zinke, and received only 41.9 percent of the 2-party vote. As the graphs below reveal, the closer Democratic candidates for the U.S. House seat approach fundraising parity with their Republican opponents, the greater their share of the 2-party vote.
In 2002, Steve Kelly (who in 1994 ran as an independent against Williams) raised just under $12,000. In 2008, John Driscoll raised no money.
The next graph plots the Democrat’s share of the 2-party vote as a function of how closely the Democrat’s contributions matched the Republican’s contributions.
Update, 25 July 2017. I now have solid contributions to candidates data for the 2017 special congressional election, and thus have added Rob Quist to the scatterplot. I omitted the 2017 special congressional election from this graph. The fundraising dynamics for that election differ from those for regularly scheduled elections. Moreover, the actual amount raised is tricky to determine, and Independent expenditures were substantial. For the regularly scheduled elections, independent expenditures were ≤ 10 percent (the numbers are in the spreadsheet).
The graphs invite two conclusions. First, there’s a yellow dog floor of Democratic support that’s approximately one-third of the 2-party vote. Second, under most circumstances Democrats, in addition to nominating good candidates and presenting a persuasive message, must achieve rough fundraising parity to have a chance of winning. Nevertheless, the r-squared value almost seems too high to be true, so exercise some caution in drawing conclusions. I leave it to the political science professionals to provide a more sophisticated analysis.
Whether the 2018 Democratic nominee for Montana’s U.S. House seat, Kathleen Williams, needs to raise as much money as Rep. Greg Gianforte to have an even chance of winning, remains to be determined. In a Gravis poll taken in early June, she led Gianforte, by six points. And her post-primary fundraising is robust. But the big spending won’t start until after Labor Day. Gianforte, one of the two or three richest members of Congress, can pour millions into his campaign, and there may be substantial “independent” expenditures from deeply conservative groups. Williams may benefit from riding a wave of revulsion against Republicans, but she needs to get her message out. That requires raising millions, achieving rough parity with Gianforte, and spending her money effectively.
The final graphs display the Democratic share of the 2-party vote for 1992–2017.
