It Could Be $20 Well Spent

Before Ned Lamont (D) pumped over $14 million of his own money into a losing Senate bid, he probably should have spent $20 on Jennifer Steen's Self-Financed Candidates in Congressional Elections. In the book, Steen uses empirical data to show that the vast majority of self-financers do not win their elections.

Lamont wasn't alone. Pete Ricketts (R) plunked down more than $11 million to get trounced by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) pledged $10 million on her landslide defeat to Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL).

In fact, the Center for Responsive Politics notes that Tuesday's elections "did not go well for self-financed candidates. Forty congressional candidates spent more than $500,000 of their own money in 2006. Only 23 of them even made it to the general election, and just six appear to have won."

An interesting observation from the book: Between 1990 and 2000, self-financed candidates who spent more than $4 million of their own money were Democrats by a 2:1 margin. From 2000 to 2004, the Democratsí margin rose to 3:1.

November 10, 2006 | Related News



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