On Monday, Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff released a joint memo “sounding the alarm” that their campaigns were at risk of failure if they didn’t raise more money. The memo warned that the two candidates, whose victories would hand control of the Senate to the Democrats, were being swamped by a “tsunami” of Republican money.
That same day, Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, Warnock’s opponent in one of the two January 5 Senate runoffs, ran a Facebook ad saying she was “at serious risk of being outraised by the Radical Left.”
Could both be true? Could both sides be losing the fundraising battle in what are shaping up to be two of the most expensive Senate races in history?
The short answer is: yes. The longer answer is, as it often is when it comes to campaign finance, more complicated. Depending on the metric, both sides can plausibly lay claim to being outspent or otherwise outgunned financially.
Candidate Fundraising
Georgia’s two runoff elections have already attracted more than $500 million in advertising spending across TV, radio, and digital outlets, according to media research firm Kantar. Even without accounting for the tens of millions of dollars spent by outside groups on non-advertising electioneering, that places both near the top of the most expensive Senate races in history.
Warnock and Ossoff both smashed fundraising records when they each reported raising roughly $100 million from Oct. 15 to Dec. 16. Ossoff is now the all-time fundraising leader among Senate candidates, with $139 million in total receipts this cycle, and Warnock is close behind with $125 million.
Loeffler and Perdue raised $92 million and $89 million, respectively, through Dec. 16, making them the second and third-biggest...