Most Expensive Midterm Loser Spent $68 Million Trying to Oust a Republican

Democratic Representative Val Demings became the congressional candidate who spent the most but still lost in her failed campaign to oust Republican Marco Rubio from his U.S. Senate seat in Florida last week.

Demings, who currently represents Florida's 10th congressional district, was defeated by Rubio in the midterm elections on Tuesday after only receiving 41.3 percent of the vote compared to the Republican's 57.7 percent, according to results last updated Monday afternoon.

Demings' loss was a blow for Democrats hoping to widen their Senate majority, but a win for Republicans who were hoping to flip control of the upper chamber of Congress. Still, even without a win from Demings, Democrats were able to retain control of the Senate with key wins from candidates like John Fetterman in Pennsylvania and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada.

Polling leading up to the midterms showed that Rubio was likely to retain his Senate seat, with FiveThirtyEight's average as of November 8 giving the Republican an 8.8 point lead over Demings. But that did not stop her campaign from spending more than $68 million as of October 19 in the effort to flip the Senate seat blue, according to data from OpenSecrets, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that tracks campaign finance and lobbying.

Rubio, in comparison, spent more than $42 million in the race. While considerably less than what Demings spent, he is still among the top 10 of congressional candidates who spent the most in midterms.

Ray La Raja, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Newsweek that big spending in political races does not necessarily lead to success. In competitive races where both sides raise a lot of money, "it just doesn't make that much of a difference after a while," La Raja said.

Kenneth Miller, an assistant professor of political finance at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, also told Newsweek that high spending in political races does not ensure victory.

"In terms of thinking about spending versus your opponent, really all you need to do is just get into the same range, just get into the ballpark with them," Miller said. "Outspending your opponent by 5, 10, 15 percent—it really doesn't matter. If your opponent is spending 45 million and you spent 4 million that's going to be very different."

The level of spending from Demings, while one of the highest of the 2022 cycle, is not uncommon in Florida. In 2018, Republican Rick Scott spent more than $83 million in his successful bid for the U.S. Senate, according to OpenSecrets. Nearly $63.6 million of Scott's funds in that race came from his own wallet, USA Today reported.

And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who won a reelection bid in the midterms, raised more than $200 million and spent about $100 million, a far cry from the $31 million raised by his Democratic challenger Charlie Crist, Politico reported in early November.

OpenSecrets data shows that Demings was only outspent by two candidates out of the hundreds who were on the ballot for U.S. House and Senate elections on Tuesday: Democratic Senators Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Mark Kelly of Arizona.

Warnock, who had spent nearly $76 million in the race as of October 19, is headed for a runoff against Republican challenger Herschel Walker after neither candidate managed to get above 50 percent of the vote last week. Incumbent Warnock did, however, receive a higher vote percentage of 49.41 compared to Walker's 48.52.

Kelly, who spent more than $73 million in his race as of October 19, narrowly defeated Republican opponent Blake Masters in the competitive election in Arizona.

If either Warnock or Kelly had lost their races, they would have taken first place over Demings as the most expensive loser in the midterm elections.

Update 11/14/22, 3:05 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information.