Despite All The Talk of 'Outside Spending' On Campaigns, Democrats Have Enjoyed the Lead on Such Spending — Until Now

By Andrew Mayersohn
One of 2013's more intriguing campaign finance stories was the fact that -- after being outspent 2-to-1 in the 2012 cycle -- liberal outside spending groups easily outpaced their conservative counterparts. Led by groups with close ties to Democratic leadership, liberal super PACs dominated the outside spending in early races such as the special elections in Massachusetts and New Jersey, while major conservative players held their fire or focused on Republican primary fights.

Let's hope Democrats enjoyed the lead while it lasted. This week, conservative groups surpassed liberal groups in total reported outside spending for the 2014 cycle -- and aren't likely to look back.

The scales tipped in favor of conservatives yesterday when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which last cycle spent the bulk of its money opposing Democratic Senate candidates, reported several major ad buys in North Carolina. Conservative groups as a whole have spent $35.7 million so far this cycle, narrowly edging their liberal counterparts' $35.4 million. 

That said, the $73 million spent so far this cycle by outside groups (which includes a small amount by groups that can't be classified as liberal or conservative) is likely to be only a modest share of the eventual total. By this date in 2010, only about 5 percent of the cycle's outside spending had taken place; by May 2012, despite the resources expended on the Republican presidential primary, just over 10 percent of the cycle's outside money had been spent. This cycle's most expensive race so far was the special election in Florida's 13th District, in which conservative outside groups outspent liberal ones by more than $1 million.

Democrats can take some consolation in the fact that liberal super PACs are still well ahead of their conservative rivals in both spending ($22.7 million to $18.4 million) and money raised ($95.5 million to $57.4 million). Conservatives, however, have the edge in outside spending by political nonprofits and conventional PACs -- even though the spending by liberal nonprofits has been growing faster than the outlays by conservative ones. Moreover, none of these numbers counts spending that isn't disclosed to the Federal Election Commission, including most of the ads run by Americans for Prosperity attempting to tie vulnerable Democratic senators to the Affordable Care Act.

Reprinted with permission from OpenSecrets.