© Provided by Washington Examiner The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee emerged from a bruising 2020 election cycle with $8.4 million in the bank and $14 million in leftover debt, leaving the House majority's political arm with less available net cash at the outset of the 2022 campaign than the National Republican Congressional Committee.
The DCCC raised $345.8 million in 2019 and 2020, finishing last year with $21 million in cash on hand, versus the NRCC's $280.9 million raised and $12.6 million banked as of Dec. 31. But the House GOP campaign arm entered the Jan. 1 kickoff of the 2022 election cycle in a better financial position than its Democratic counterpart, reporting zero debt in Federal Election Commission filings made public on Sunday.
These figures have Republicans feeling optimistic about next year's midterm elections - especially after they flipped a dozen House seats and came within a handful of winning the majority despite the DCCC's spending advantage. For House Democrats, it was a disappointing 2020 except for the fact that they hung on to the speaker's gavel.
President Biden defeated former President Donald Trump, and Senate Democrats won the majority after sweeping a pair of runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5. But House Democrats, originally projected to gain as many as 15 seats, lost nearly every race on the Nov. 3 ballot that was rated a "toss-up" by political handicappers.
Beneath the topline fundraising numbers for the House campaign committees, the DCCC over the past two years raised $100.7 million from grassroots contributors who gave less than $200, often through the internet donation platform ActBlue. That was more than the $77.1 million the NRCC accumulated from grassroots contributors during the same period and roughly equal to the $95.7 million the DCCC raised during the 2018 midterm election cycle.
However, the NRCC's $77.1 million, although significantly less than the DCCC's small donor haul, was a major improvement over the previous cycle and likely due to the party's adoption of WinRed, an online counterpart to ActBlue. In 2017 and 2018, the NRCC collected just $27.7 million from contributors who gave under $200. In the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats won 40 seats and the House majority after nearly a decade in the wilderness.
Tags: News, Campaigns, 2022 Elections, NRCC, DCCC
Original Author: David M. Drucker
Original Location: House Republicans clear of debt as they work toward majority in 2022