Show Me the Money: IN 9; Rather Lackluster Fundraising Filings All Around

Federal campaign finance filings for Q2 are out, and I'll be looking at some of the more notable numbers in Indiana, district by district.

In the 9th District, there were sorry campaign fundraising numbers all around. Baron Hill posted contribution numbers significantly inferior ($218,615.89) to his fundraising in Q2 of 2007 ($322,440.73), even with having a presidential fundraiser to help bolster his campaign's war chest.

But then, Baron had a lot of money on hand already, some from the past cycle and some from his prior quarter to ensure he remains vastly ahead of both of his current potential Republican competitors in terms of cash-on-hand. And then there's the matter of the Obama fundraiser, titled "Keep Indiana Blue," which gave Baron a 20% boost on his existing lackluster fundraising.

Baron posted additional fundraising of some $40,232.88 from that event, bringing his total haul for this quarter to $258,848.77, a number that is still significantly less than Baron's haul at this point in the 2008 cycle. Part of that may be due to the economy. Part of that may be due to Baron feeling safe after he outspent Mike Sodrel three-to-one last time. Part of that may be that Baron doesn't feel threatened from the current crop of potential challengers (filed and not-filed; Richard Moss has never filed a committee to run). It may be all of the above.

As for the aforementioned challengers, their fundraising was considerably less than Baron's reduced haul (and also less than Sodrel's take at various corresponding times in his various campaigns, and neither Young nor Hankins have Sodrel's ability to self-finance). Baron has already spent more, this year, than the two of them combined have raised.

"Winners" are in italics.

Starting Cash-on-Hand:
Travis Hankins: $0.00
Baron Hill: $209,025.75
Todd Young: $16,392.00

Q2 Net Receipts (Contributions):
Travis Hankins: $34,148.00
Baron Hill: $258,848.77
Todd Young: $73,945.60

Hankins' totals here include $420 that the candidate gave his own committee. Baron's totals include the Obama fundraiser.

Q2 Individual Receipts:
Travis Hankins: $33,728.00
Baron Hill: $106,910.27
Todd Young: $73,945.60

Baron's totals here, again, include the Obama fundraiser. By its nature, the money from the fundraiser (when you look at it itemized) came from individual donors, even though it was routed through a separate entity before making its way to Baron's campaign. Including it doesn't give a "winner" that I like, but I think it's the fair way to track it.

Q2 Committee Receipts (from PACs and special interests):
Travis Hankins: $0.00
Baron Hill: $149,175.00
Todd Young: $0.00

Q2 Disbursements (Expenditures):
Travis Hankins: $25,127.81
Baron Hill: $66,373.66
Todd Young: $1,345.43

Ending Cash-on-Hand:
Travis Hankins: $9,020.19
Baron Hill: $401,500.86
Todd Young: $88,992.17

Back after the 2008 election, I had a post looking at how Sodrel got outspent and the sorts of questions that have to be asked going into the next round in the 9th District. It's a topical post, so I'll requote it here.

Getting outspent that badly will skew the outcome of any race in a district of almost any partisan or ideological composition.

There are a lot of questions that serious individuals seeking to run against Baron Hill must ask in the wake of the last election, and a lot of questions that they must answer.

Is the district competitive for Republicans in non-Republican years, or were 2006 and 2008 just that bad for Republicans? Will it revert just as much in the opposite direction in years that are just bad for Democrats?

Considerably more fundraising is going to be necessary on the part of the Republican candidate to avoid being outspent so badly in 2010 and beyond; where will that money come from? Will it have to come from a self-financing candidate (as Sodrel was at one time)?

Given the state of the national party and the Republican Congressional campaign arm, the NRCC, a GOP challenger in the 9th (and pretty much GOP challengers everywhere) cannot count on national assistance to put them over the top; can heightened fundraising or self-funding even make up that gap?

It seems clear that we are not finding affirmative (or Republican-friendly) answers to these questions given the Q2 numbers above. Neither Hankins nor Young have the ability to self-fund, and it seems clear that neither of them is going to raise enough money to run a traditional race against Baron Hill.

National Republicans, when they come to Indiana, always talk about the 9th (and sometimes the 2nd and the 8th, or even the 7th when the wind was more favorable). But the 9th--the most competitive of these districts--now rates on none of their lists when it comes time to spend money on issue ads or conduct other expenditures or efforts to soften up the incumbent in an off year.

From that, I think it is safe (though profoundly disappointing) to say that no national assistance will be forthcoming to either of these candidates. A wave or a herculean effort might get them money at the 11th hour, with perhaps a week or two left in the campaign. But they have to get themselves to that point first, and their current fundraising gives no indication of that being likely.

When national GOP folks come to Indiana and speak of the 9th being their top target in Indiana, they might as well be speaking of their top target in Massachusetts, for all of the effort they appear willing to put into the district. They may have a top target district in a state like Massachusetts, but that's a very different thing from that district even being on their radar nationally. Currently, the 9th just isn't.

The 9th is also institutionally a very difficult district to run in. There is no unified media market. Ads have to be run in the Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Louisville media markets. One week of television in the 9th alone will cost you half of what it costs to run an ad over the entire state of Indiana (excluding the Chicago market).

And because there is no unified media market, or even a minor media market within the district itself, the neighboring media markets do only token reporting on the race within the 9th itself. Even in 2006, when the 9th was ground zero nationally, news outlets in those three media markets did negligible reporting on the race.

Because of this, earned media is virtually impossible to obtain. If you want airtime in the 9th, you have to buy it. And because the local newspapers are overwhelmingly good-old-boy Democrat, if you want earned media in the newspapers, you have to buy it too. Mike Sodrel could have a rally with ten thousand people in a town of five thousand people, and the Democrats running the town newspaper would never do a story on it. They'd be sure to copy and paste Baron Hill's latest press release, though; they never miss a one.

Establishing name ID in an environment like that is virtually impossible without the expenditure of vast sums, probably between half a million and a million dollars (these days, with today's ad prices, probably more like the million, and maybe more). And that's before you start to go after Baron Hill on his liberal voting record.

Baron Hill is not stupid like Bart Peterson. He will not run negative ads against his opponent that give his opponent name ID. That name ID will have to be fought for and obtained with money. Right now, that is money that these candidates do not have and, unfortunately, it does not appear that they will soon get.

Now we have two candidates in the Republican field, and a likely primary looming. That might be worth some earned media at some point. I hope so; it could be the only way for them to get any earned media at all from some of these local news outlets.

Mighty fundraising efforts, the endorsements of every statewide elected official save the Governor, and collection of low-hanging fruit (the "easy money" that a candidate tends to get out of the box that won't be seen again in future contributions) have gotten Todd Young all of $74,000. This is less than Democratic placeholders Michael Montagano and Nels Ackerson raised in the 3rd and 4th districts in their first quarters in 2007. There are second-tier primary challengers to Dan Burton up in the 5th District that have raised more money.

There's a frightening echo of Greg Goode (who tried hard, raised a roughly similar amount in his first quarter, and then faded fast) in Young's campaign. I like Todd--he's a great guy (I liked Greg Goode too; both are hugely preferable in comparison to their opponents)--but it would be hard to spin this number as anything positive and I'm not going to try.

If the statewide elected officials, most of them from outside of the 9th District, want to intervene into the district and pick its Congressional candidate, then they should either pick a candidate that can win or be prepared to do heavy lifting on the fundraising and helping fronts to make sure that their anointed one can get the job done. As it stands, they have frozen the field and no one currently in the field seems up to the task.

Travis Hankins, who is off doing grassroots work with interns going door-to-door and attending community festivals, managed to raise half of Todd Young's total, largely in small donor contributions. He also spent almost three quarters of what he raised.

Maybe that's a grassroots strategy that could work. I'm skeptical. I assume that there is some sort of strategy involved; one should hope. The sort of thing being done by Hankins worked for Michael Bailey (focus on the base more than the money) and a variant of the same worked for John Hostettler (focus strong grassroots rather than an expensive media campaign) for years.

Can it work in the 9th? The example of Bailey would indicate that it can work in the primary. And yet the same example of Bailey (and the very strong grassroots efforts of Sodrel in 2008) would indicate that it probably can't in November.

The twin hurdles of the rural good-old-boy Democrats and the Bloomington liberals are too much to overcome without name ID and loads of money for television ads. The grassroots will not suffice, nor will endorsements from statewides in Indianapolis.

I've been pessimistic enough. I'll take a detailed look at the other districts tomorrow.