The summer cash drive officially is in the books, and the results say a lot about who is up and who is down in the still-developing 2012 campaign landscape.
For some ? including Senate Democrats, a handful of House primary challengers and a cadre of women candidates ? the third fundraising quarter was a success story, bolstering their bids.
Continue ReadingFor others ? Senate GOP challengers and several veteran House incumbents ? the outcome was less promising.
Here?s what POLITICO learned from the third-quarter fundraising reports.
The supercommittee?s super raisers
If you?re on the deficit-cutting supercommittee, chances are you?re raising a lot of money.
At least three of the committee members ? GOP Reps. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, and Fred Upton and Dave Camp of Michigan ? raised more than $400,000 each over the past three months.
Camp was the big winner ? the House Ways and Means Committee chairman raked in more than $707,000.
For Upton, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee, the cash will come in especially handy. Last year, he won just 57 percent of the vote in a GOP race against a little-known tea party foe, and ? depending on whether the supercommittee?s spending cuts anger conservatives ? he could find himself in a tough primary once again.
Whether Upton and Camp will be able to keep up the pace through the end of the year is uncertain. Both have said recently that they plan to scale back their fundraising efforts while the powerful supercommittee deliberates.
Incumbency begets consistency
With 33 seats in play, incumbent Democrats know that there will be less money from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to go around. They?re confronting this reality by stepping up their game. Of the six most vulnerable members facing competitive contests, five surpassed the million-dollar mark this quarter. Sens. Jon Tester, Claire McCaskill, Debbie Stabenow and Sherrod Brown each raised $1.2 million, while Florida Sen. Bill Nelson surged ahead of his class with a $1.9 million haul. This marks the third consecutive quarter that these five GOP targets have produced at least $1 million each in receipts. While none of them are shattering records, their grind-it-out approach is slowly and steadily yielding success.
The moneyed majority
Another heartening development for Senate Democrats: They are progressively extending their cash-on-hand leads in the marquee contests and in nonincumbent races. Particularly troubling to Republicans should be Florida and Missouri, where Nelson now has a class-leading $6.5 million advantage over his nearest rival, former Sen. George LeMieux; McCaskill has racked up a $2.5 million lead over Rep. Todd Akin. The fact that neither LeMieux nor Akin can be safely considered front-runners for their own party?s nominations means the GOP will have to play catch-up in two contests they view as pick-up opportunities. Back-to-back subpar performances by Rep. Denny Rehberg have helped Tester build a $1.2 million lead in Montana. Even Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, whose cash flow dropped by more than half this quarter, still enjoys a $1.5 million leg up over his nearest rival, state Attorney General Jon Bruning. Two Democratic candidates, Tim Kaine and Rep. Shelley Berkley, have tenuous edges.
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