House Democrats' Campaign Arm Raised a Record $43 Million in the First Quarter

The fundraising arm that works to get House Democrats elected raked in $43.5 million in the first quarter of this year—the group's highest-ever single quarter, the committee's chairwoman told Newsweek on Monday.

With more than $80 million cash on hand—$28 million more than this point during the 2018 election cycle—Democrats have positioned themselves exceptionally well for this November to defend the dozens of House seats they flipped two years ago and to retain control of the chamber.

"Freshmen Democrats will have the resources to get the jobs done," Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), told Newsweek in an interview. "They're running against people who have a very poor showing right now."

Ahead of their filing deadline with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by end of day Monday, Bustos said this March's $14.3 million intake was also record-breaking compared to all past ones, bringing the total raised during this election cycle to $168 million. At this time in 2018, the DCCC had raised $139 million—$29 million less.

The committee fundraising haul is on top of the party's most vulnerable House members, many of whom are first-term lawmakers who represent districts won by President Donald Trump, dominating their Republican challengers in fundraising the first quarter.

On average, the nearly four dozen most at-risk House Democrats brought in three times the amount of money and have more than five times the amount of cash in the bank than their Republican rivals. The average swing-district Democrat brought in $685,000 and has more than $2.3 million in the bank. In comparison, each GOP campaign brought in about $212,000 per candidate and has an average of less than $434,000 on hand.

"I look at this through a different lens, in that all of the work we did up through March and going into quarter two we will need to be successful in November in a very, very new campaign normal," Bustos said.

The first-quarter DCCC numbers marked another month—and quarter—in which the group outraised its GOP counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). The Republican group brought in nearly $11.6 million in March for a total of about $39.3 million during the first quarter. The NRCC has nearly $49 million cash on hand—or more than $31 million less than the DCCC.

The NRCC did not respond to Newsweek's request for comment.

The numbers also show that throughout the 2020 election cycle, the DCCC has outraised the NRCC each quarter and each month except for one. In 2019, the NRCC was outraised by the DCCC by $40 million.

In an effort to relay a sense of urgency to GOP candidates, the chairman of the NRCC, Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), has warned Republicans about the fundraising shortfalls.

"Our members need to get their act together and raise more money. The individual campaigns need to raise more money," Emmer told the conservative Ripon Society in January. "They cannot expect somebody else is gonna do it for them. That's the one issue I think we're gonna have over the next quarter, is getting these guys moving."

Democrats' strong fundraising numbers also comes as the coronavirus pandemic has forced campaigns to cease normal operations and officials to postpone primary elections. The health crisis has the potential to transform the way America conducts its elections, giving incumbents a leg-up on the competition as donations are expected to dwindle amid congressional campaigns making less asks for contributions.

Despite this, Bustos said online fundraising remained "excellent" through quarter two and surpassed the DCCC's projections, including the latter half of March when social distancing guidelines forced much of the U.S. economy to suddenly shudder. Bustos chalked-up part of Democrats' success due to how members have structured their campaigns "in a way to help people."

She argued that constituents have rewarded Democrats for using their campaigns to perform wellness checks on at-risk community members and to pass along advice from medical professionals during tele-townhalls.

"I think what people see House Democrats doing, including candidates, is we are removing the politics from politicking during this worldwide pandemic," Bustos said.

Examples of strong individual first quarters include Democrats Katie Porter and Josh Harder of California, who boast more than 30 times the amount of campaign cash as their challengers. In Michigan and Virginia, Reps. Elissa Slotkin and Abigail Spanberger have more than $3 million in the bank compared to their opponents' less than $500,000, respectively. Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey has nearly $8 million compared to his GOP rival's roughly $560,000.

The DCCC will use much of its money to invest in building new software to more effectively and efficiently reach grassroots voters as campaigns face the ongoing reality of social distancing, according to Bustos. The committee will also put resources toward voting by mail, a measure of casting ballots that Democrats in Congress want the federal government to inject billions of dollars into ahead of the Fall elections.

"It's almost like starting from scratch because we have to do things so much differently than we have before," she said.

This story was updated to include information from the NRCC's FEC filing.