The holidays have given us time to look at the final money figures from the campaign. We start with the 30th district senate seat in Springfield. The post-election reports came into the MEC office a few weeks back.
In 2002, then-Rep. Norma Champion ran against fellow house member Rep. Criag Hosmer for the seat being vacated by Roseann Bentley. That campaign spent $166,993.18.
This year against Democrat Doug Harpool, Champion's campaign raised more than $305,000 and spent in excess of $312,000. Harpool loaned himself $25,000 a week before the campaign. The final tally: $223K raised, $212K spent in a losing effort.
Up the interstate in Sen. Frank Barnitz's district, the money was just as abundant. The Democratic incumbent raised $325,000 for his re-election and spent nearly all of it ($315,301). Republican Susie Snyders raised more money ($347K+) but spent only $257,948. Snyders relied heavily on last minute contributions from legislative district campaign committees. She, like other Republican campaigns, put a lot of money into Marshfield-based consultant John Thompson.
For kicks, I wanted to look at the efficiency of a campaign. That is, ask the question: do candidates get their money's worth in spending tens of thousands of dollars? Here are some samples:
Sen. Norma Champion $8.59/vote
Doug Harpool $7.91/vote
Sen. Frank Barnitz $10.36/vote
Susie Snyders $9.34/vote
And in the 32nd District Senate race where the Republican incumbent, Sen. Gary Nodler, ran against an independent candidate, Nodler spent $1.05 per vote, a good sign for an incumbent. But his opponent, Kim Wright, had to spend just 47 cents per vote to earn the 20,000+ votes she received. She handily lost but she made the most of the limited resources she had.
By contrast to everyone, the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures had to spent $28.13 per vote to get Amendment 2 passed.
4 comments:
So I got to thinking about those numbers again this morning. Let's assume that if two candidates spend the same amount of money, they would receive the same number of votes. (There are plenty flaws in that assumption I know but hang with me.) If a losing candidate can spend x and receive y votes, it stands to reason the other candidate can hope to spend x + z and receive more than y votes.
How much does it cost then to win the race? That is, how expensive were the margins?
Sen. Champion had to spend $10.53 per voter for the votes that gave her victory.
Sen. Frank Barnitz' victory cost him $20.29 per vote.
Sen. Gary Nodler's margins were $1.84 per vote.
In the 28th Senate District, Sen. Delbert Scott, R-Lowry City, was outspent by $92,880 by independent candidate Mike Holzknecht. Scott spent $4.80 per vote compared to his opponent's $9.85 but Scott won re-election with 57% of the vote. Holzknecht loaned himself $200,000 the same day he cut a big check to an ad agency out of Nasvhille. That single expenditure was 61.7% of all of his campaign's spending.
I'm not sure what conclusion (if any) we can draw from these numbers. It seems that in a close race, if you want to close the deal, you should prepare to spend heavily to close the deal. Nodler was pretty safe and enough to secure re-election. Still I'd be interested in knowing how Kim Wright turned $9,583.51 into 20,198 votes.
Interesting numbers but don't forget the "Direct Expenditures" by party committees. The Missouri Republican Party spent around $70,000 for Champion (largely last minute negative mail), the Senate Majority Fund (the Republican Senate Campaign Committee) and the 7th District Repoublican Congressional Committee also made direct expenditures for Champion. These Direct expenditures do not show on the caniddate committee report. The total spent on behalf of her campaign was much more the the amount shown by her own canidate committee. The Democrats made far fewer direct expenditures for Harpool (less then $20,000). The State Senate Democrat Committee put a lot of money on Shoemyer ($350,000) and some on Barnitz. Both of their opponents got lots of help from the Senate Majority Fund.
Champion received nearly $100,000 in "direct expenditures" from the Missouri State Republican Party, the 7th Congressional Republican Party Committee and the Republican Senate Majority Fund that are not reflected in her candidate committee totals but only reported on their reports. The cost per vote is therefor really much higher then you indicate. The Senate Majority Fund gave a lot to Snyders also. The Senate Democratic Campaign Committee gave most their money to Shoemyer in North Missouri (350,000) and some to Barnitz. They spent very little on Harpool. The State Democratic Committee contributed some to Harpool but contributions to candidate committees unlike direct 3expenditures are already included in the report of the canidate committee.
Bob once again there is a huge gap between reality and your assertions. There was a general failure by the local media to give any substantial news coverage to the State Senate race (too preoccupied with the US Senate Race and Stem Cell) and that was a huge advantage to Champion who was the incumbent with lots of name identification. I bet there were twenty stories on the U.S.Senate race for every one on the state Senate race. KOLR ran one story on the race- mainly reporting about the Glendale non-debate. KSPR ran two- a general profile and a mention of the Glendale event. KY3 ran less then five over six months. The newspaper ran two articles. All this together wouldn't compare to the extra $150,000 Champion spent on TV and radio even if if had been biased. The coverage was neutral inspite of your paranoia. KY3 tried to cover the race with this blog but thus far blogs in Springfield don't have the readership to offset a subtstantial media advantage.
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