As I’ve noted here before, Nels Ackerson is trying to get the Democratic nomination to challenge Steve Buyer for Indiana’s 4th Congressional seat. I suspect Mr. Ackerson is going to give Mr. Buyer a stiffer challenge than he has gotten in years past. One element of such a race is, inevitably, money. I think some reporting deadlines are either coming or going and we’ll get an early snapshot of this race in the near future. So, I thought it might be interesting to see how the money shook out for Mr. Buyer in the past few races.
For the 2006 race, Buyer raised $744,682 compared to $136,352 raised by David Sanders. From the report, it looks like Buyer got 77% of his money from PACS. Sanders’ race was substantially self-funded.
For the 2004 race, Buyer raised $661,525 of which 70% came from PACS. David Sanders raised about $21,392 which was about 50/50 – self-funded and individual contributions.
For the 2002 race, Buyer raised $945,973 of which 65% came from PACS and 30% was self-funded. Bill Abbott raised only $27,807. The 2002 race was a little unique in that it involved a reorganized district and, in the primary, Buyer had to square off against another incumbent, Brian Kerns.
For the 2000 race, Buyer raised $705,000 and his opponent Gregory Goodnight raised $455,000. And, in 1998, Buyer raised $346,000 and his opponent, David Steele raised $63,657.
So, what does it take to beat an incumbent? Well, in 2006, three Republican incumbents were defeated. In IN-02, Joe Donnelly beat Chris Chocola. Chocola raised $3.2 million compared to Donnelly’s $1.5 million. In IN-08, Brad Ellsworth beat John Hostettler. Ellsworth raised $1.7 million compared to Hostettler’s $586,000. And, in IN-09, Hill raised $1.9 million compared to Mike Sodrel’s $2.7 million. And, just for another data point, in IN-03, where Tom Hayhurst gave Mark Souder a pretty good run, but eventually lost, Hayhurst raised $690,000 compared to Souder’s $622,000.
Money isn’t everything. And, these fund raising numbers don’t paint the whole picture. MoveOn.org helped Donnelly out with an ad blitz against Chocola. The House Republican Campaign Committee provided financial assistance to Souder. And, plenty of other factors contribute besides. But, the fact is that Steve Buyer has not been tested by a Democratic opponent with resources comparable to his. It will be interesting to see whether Mr. Ackerson can get some traction and bring that impressive resume of his to bear against the incumbent from Monticello.
Buyer should hope moveon.org helps Ackerson, too. A recent poll (Zogby’s, I think) shows moveon.org has negatives of about 60%. Republicans claim the liberal activist group has become their best fundraising gimmick, which is probably true.
The biggest problem with beating Buyer is the makeup of the district, which was drawn (by Democrats) to be a GOP-majority district. It also makes no sense to have Bedford in the same district as Purdue, but not as IU. But it kept Lawrence County out of John Hostettler’s hands.
We get to redraw districts again in 2011. Hopefully we can get a little common sense next time.
The poll I read about MoveOn suggested that most people don’t know or don’t care who they are.
And, definitely I agree that the Fourth District is gerrymandered all to hell.
I’ll try to find the poll to confirm the numbers, but I believe it showed that a significant percentage of likely voters do know – and have a negative opinion about – moveon.org. I believe the poll was taken after the controversial “Gen. Betray Us” add appeared in the NYT. That whole flap generated a lot of media attention for the better part of a week. I believe most voters do know about the group and that Republicans will make sure that a lot more know about it by election day. If I were Nels Ackerson, I’d quickly distance myself from moveon.org, especially in the GOP-leaning district he’s trying to win.
I’m no campaign strategist so I have no idea what would make Mr. Ackerson more likely to win. But, from his current campaign message, I would guess he’d lean to your side of the fence.
So far he has been saying that the 4th District needs a representative that listens to everybody and tries to work in a bipartisan fashion. Mr. Buyer seems to just rubber stamp the policies of the President and makes no effort to work with those who disagree.
I have my own concerns about “bipartisanship” on the federal level. The federal GOP is heavily influenced by the likes of Grover Norquist who envisions “bipartisanship” as being akin to “date rape.”
Bipartisanship is something that should be aspired to but if, at the end of the day, you are dealing with opponents who will not compromise, one of you is going to have to submit.
Fox News polling showed about 20% pro move-on, about 20% anti, and about 50% had no idea who they were–this after a solid week of Fox on-air saturation-bitching about the ad. Maybe the public isn’t that anti-moveon because they have seen Fox News commentators referring to Petraeus “betraying” the troops also? Or maybe the public, whether they agreed with the ad or not, didn’t find it that outrageous.
I’ve seen Ackerson in the local papers several times and twice at events the past two months so he has been getting around fundraising and growing his volunteer base.
A little clarification on Sanders’ fundraising. I believe he only raised $36,000 but put in $100,000 of his own money in the last few weeks before the ’06 election.
I believe you are correct about the $100k self-financing in the ’06 race, 4th District.