Expenditures Aim at Competitive Few

January 9, 2011

It was the kind of attention that state Rep. Rae Waters could have done without.

Waters, a freshman legislator who in 2008 scored a Democratic breakthrough in one of the state’s few competitive districts, was Target No. 1 of opposition forces in Arizona’s general election this fall.  Unfortunately for her, the attention was far more than she could withstand in this year’s Republican surge.

She was on the receiving end of efforts by the Arizona Republican Party, which directed $44,000 toward her defeat, and two independent political committees going by the names of Arizonans for a Sound Economy and the Arizona Business Development Coalition.

Waters represents District 20 on the southeastern edge of Phoenix and over across Interstate 10 into the south side of Tempe.  With her victory in 2008, the district became one of only nine in the state in which both major political parties had won at least one legislative victory during the 10-year redistricting cycle ending with the 2010 election.

At the very moment in mid-October when the GOP’s state communications director, Matt Roberts, was being carefully vague in response to interview questions about where Republicans might be directing their legislative election efforts, campaign finance records show the party and closely affiliated independent political committees were taking dead aim on Waters and other vulnerable Democrats in eight competitive districts.  It worked.

Debacle for Democrats

Of the 14 Democrats they targeted, 12 of them – including five incumbents – went down to defeat in the Republican landslide.

The Democrats’ response was not nearly as successful. Only their top target, Wendy Rogers, a Senate candidate from District 17 in Tempe and southern Scottsdale, was defeated. Otherwise, despite their efforts to shoot down a short list of Republicans in various other competitive districts, all were elected.

This though the Democrats reported a major funding advantage.  As one measure, the Arizona Democratic Party took in $3.0 million for the campaign versus the $1.5 million of the Arizona Republican Party.  There were similar disparities at the county level.

That’s among the findings of Thinking Arizona’s examination of the voluminous final campaign financial disclosure statements filed with the Arizona Secretary of State on Dec. 2. Other highlights (these stories can be viewed by clicking on the links here or scrolling down on the home page to the links there):

• The independent political committees that made many of the expenditures for and against candidates are in some cases interconnected with Arizona political consulting firms run bysome heavy hitters. Tracing the connections.[1]
• Their efforts were fed by contributions in the hundreds of thousands of dollars from political action committees and individuals. The list of the top 10 contributors.[2]
• The heavy spending made it all the more treacherous for candidates from competitive districts to participate in Clean Elections public funding, particularly with the matching funds provision on hold while its fate is decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Nonetheless, one legislative candidate in southeastern Arizona rode the Republican wave to what Thinking Arizona believes is a first. The full story.[3]
• A Democratic incumbent who was elected as a Clean Elections candidate in 2008 switched in 2010 to traditional funding.  He needed every one of his assets, financial as well as the non-financial kind, to eke out re-election. A close-up look.[4]

[5]Spending varies widely by competitiveness of district.  (Click graph to see in full.)

 

 

If there was one iota of doubt as to which districts in the state are at least somewhat competitive, the campaign financial disclosure statements should put it to rest. Thinking Arizona’s analysis of the documents shows that the nine districts:

• Included the four districts with the highest overall campaign spending, factoring in both the expenditures of the candidates themselves and the independent committees. District 11, on the well-to-do northeast side of Phoenix stretching into Paradise Valley and Scottsdale, was highest at $779,000. Tucson’s District 26 was next at $580,000. See list.[6]
• Accounted for 80 percent of spending by political committees operating independently of the candidates. View graph.[7]
• All ranked among the top 10 districts for such expenditures. The biggest battleground was District 26 in northwest Tucson, where $185,000 was spent by the independent organizations. See list.[8]
• Are home to the candidates who were the top targets of those expenditures, in fact the top 17 on the list. Waters was first with $68,000 of spending against her. Close behind was Nancy Young Wright, who was the target of $46,000 worth of negative attention in District 26.  Like Waters, Young Wright is a Democrat who was elected in 2008 and ousted in 2010.  See list.[9]

Spending Pattern Differs

The majority of this spending occurred after the primary election. That is in sharp contrast to the 21 districts in the state that are secure either for Republicans or Democrats. In those districts, three-quarters of spending occurred prior to the primary election.

The contrasting spending patterns substantiate the different dynamic in the two types of districts.

In the secure districts, the general election is mostly a non-event.  The real competition comes in the primary, particularly in the Republican-district battles between those of different degrees of conservatism.  In fact, the primaries in the 13 secure Republican districts accounted for 29 percent of the total $9.4 million spent on the legislative election of 2010.  Comparatively little – 10 percent of all expenditures – was spent in those districts on the general election.  View chart.[10]

Some of the nine competitive districts had primary battles as well. Pre-primary expenditures in those districts accounted for 19 percent of all spending on the legislative election.   That was merely prelude, however, to the general election.  Those races drew 24 percent of all expenditures.

– Richard Gilman

©2012 Thinking Arizona and http://www.thinkingarizona.com