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November 01, 2010
The Hottest Race in the Senate
What's the most heavily-funded battle for a seat in the Senate? The answer is, a little surprisingly, Ken Buck (R) vs. Michael Bennet (D) for Salazar's seat in Colorado. For the past 3 weeks, this battle has received the most funding by interest groups and political parties. Here's the spending for all Senate candidates in 2010 (through 10/25/2010, with spending listed by incumbent):
The Colorado race has received $10 million more in outside funds than any other race! As you can also see, Blanche Lincoln is desperately trying to hold on to her spot, while the Republicans are hunting seats belonging to some of our favorite Dems. Excepting the outliers, Republican supporters have outspent Democrats by 10 to 30 points in these races.
The last reported week of spending shows which races are hot at the moment:
Democrats have been pouring it on in the Perreillo race, trying to make up their gap (somewhere between 1 and 6 points). [
Update: Kasper Hauser points out that I let Perreillo's race for the House creep in here amongst the Senate races. To discipline myself, I'll be refrigerating my pudding tomorrow night.] But I think the Republican candidate, Hurt, is safe - President Obama doomed Perreillo with a supportive visit last Friday.
Still the fight in Colorado, with Ken Buck currently leading by 1 point, reigns as the most expensive contest; a spot it has held for the past 3 weeks. Save for Buck's gaffes* over the past month, this race would not be this close, but as soon as the Dems spotted an opportunity, money flooded in. Tomorrow we'll see which group is celebrated as wise investors, and which group is mocked as chumps.
Should be an exciting night.
*where I use the word to mean openings for the opposition, not necessarily genuine mistakes.