Super PACs

“Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is exploring the creation of a super PAC dedicated to supporting Senate Republicans on the 2016 ballot,” sources tell the Washington Examiner.

“Senate Republicans were at a financial and advertising disadvantage for most of the 2014 cycle, as Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC of outgoing Majority Leader Harry Reid, carpet-bombed the airwaves in targeted states on behalf of Democratic candidates. McConnell wants an organization that can do the same for Republicans in 2016, a presidential year, when his barely-minted majority faces a tough Senate map, with incumbents up for re-election in states like Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”

New research from Alan Abramowitz: “The correlation between the Democratic and Republican outside spending difference and the Democratic margin was .23, which is not statistically significant. In contrast, the correlation between the Democratic margin and incumbency status was a more significant .76, and the correlation between the Democratic Senate margin in 2014 and the Democratic presidential vote margin in 2012 was an even more significant .89.”

“In other words, partisanship in a polarized era, represented by the ’12 presidential vote margin, was by far the strongest predictor of 2014’s Senate vote. Naturally, incumbency status is also significant. But the difference between amounts of outside spending by groups affiliated with both parties has surprisingly little effect, perhaps because both sides spent so much that the money from Republicans neutralized the cash from Democrats, and vice versa.”

McConnell Seeks Super PAC to Keep GOP Majority

Outside Spending Didn’t Buy the Election