Robert Schmad
State Democratic parties in Arizona, Wisconsin and Minnesota handily outraised and outspent their Republican counterparts in July, newly released campaign finance filings show.
Arizona, Wisconsin and Minnesota each have state legislature chambers with narrow majorities, paving the way for flips in either direction. Democrats outraised Republicans almost ten-to-one in Minnesota, five-to-one in Wisconsin and two-to-one in Arizona during the month, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records.
The Republican Party of Arizona raised $552,000 in July, compared to the $1.2 million raised by their Democratic rivals, FEC filings show. Arizona Republicans say they raised $2.58 million in the four weeks leading up to Aug. 14, according to an announcement a party spokesperson shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Republicans hold two-seat majorities in both the Arizona House and Senate.
Minnesota saw the largest fundraising discrepancy of the three states, with Democrats bringing in about $2.2 million and Republicans taking roughly $236,000, according to FEC records. While Minnesota leans Democratic at the federal level, the state Senate is currently split 33-33 among Republicans and Democrats, and Democrats only have a four-seat majority in the state house.
The Wisconsin Democratic Party raised over $4 million in July, compared to the $834,000 collected by the state’s GOP, FEC records show. Wisconsin Republicans were outspent by a similar margin, disbursing just about $530,000 last month compared to the $2.6 million spent by the Democrats.
Wisconsin GOP leaders appear unworried by the threat of losing the state house, even after the state’s left-leaning Supreme Court tossed out legislative maps that favored Republicans, The Associated Press reported.
“They say this every two years and it never works out for them,” Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in June, dismissing discussions that Democrats could make significant electoral gains in November.
Vos argued that voters didn’t want to see Wisconsin become a “crazy liberal state” like Minnesota or Illinois and claimed that better candidates and a poor national economy would work in their favor.
Republicans currently hold a 64-35 advantage in Wisconsin’s lower house, however with redistricting and retirements, 60 of the 99 seats have no incumbent, according to the AP.
Parties aren’t the only players spending large sums of cash on state elections. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) and the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) have both committed to spending tens of millions of dollars on state legislature races in Arizona, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and New Hampshire.
Despite “record-breaking fundraising,” the RSLC President Dee Duncan previously said that he was apprehensive about the November elections.
“We saw it in 2022 when the DLCC, the States Project, and Forward Majority combined to spend over $120 million to our $38 million investment, and again in 2023 in Virginia when our entire cycle spend was matched and surpassed during the final weeks of the election,” Duncan wrote in May. “With the DLCC committed to spend $60 million this cycle, Forward Majority committed to spending $25 million, and even more money pouring in from the States Project, this will be the largest uphill battle the RSLC has faced to date, but we are battle tested and ready for the fight.”
The States Project, a liberal organization that focuses on state legislatures, recently added Wisconsin to its $60 million campaign to elect Democrats, the New York Times reported.
Democrats also outraised Republicans by large margins in Arizona, Wisconsin and Minnesota during 2023, as well as in other swing states, according to campaign finance disclosures.
A significant portion of the funding flowing to state parties comes from the Republican and Democratic national committees, and the latter tends to outspend the former. In Wisconsin, for instance, the Republican National Committeehas given state Republicans about $977,000 this year whereas the Democratic National Committee gave its state-level affiliate over $2.4 million during the same period, according to campaign finance filings.
State parties in Wisconsin and Minnesota and the Arizona Democratic Party did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
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