By Connor Carlin
Staff Writer
The 2022 midterm election season has officially arrived, and both Republicans and Democrats have already built up war chests of about $400 million each in preparation. Fundraising levels are higher now then at the same point in 2018 or 2020. Given the Democrats’ 50-50 Senate majority, even one gain or loss could determine which party holds the chamber in the next Congress.
Breaking funding records has become somewhat routine, with both 2018 and 2020 themselves being the most expensive races in US history. The difference for 2022 is that a defining factor of those previous elections, former President Donald Trump, is neither in power nor on the ballot. These fundraising records are a testament to the fact that, though absent, Trump’s influence on politics is here to stay, at least for the moment.
Trump has not disappeared — far from it in fact, as he himself wrapped up 2021 with a personal war chest of over $100 million. Beyond this, however, is the number of Trumpian Republicans running for House and Senate seats, at odds with the anti-Trump and more traditional wing of the party, represented by figures such as Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY). According to the New York Times, both have received early financial support from donors including former President George W. Bush, outraising their Trump-backed challengers as of Feb. 1.
The specter of Trump has cast a shadow across a number of important races, particularly for battleground Senate seats. Several states are worth mentioning in this respect, such as Ohio, where the retirement of establishment Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) has opened up the primary field to a slew of candidates vying to portray themselves as the “Trump” candidate. The two most notable are J.D. Vance, a venture capitalist famous for his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, and Josh Mandel, former Ohio state treasurer. Both have made headlines for their ham-fisted attempts to appeal to the Trump base, especially Vance, who rose to prominence as a conservative Trump critic, only to now wholeheartedly accept an endorsement from Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Mandel, on the other hand, posted a video of himself burning a mask, along with endorsing the most extreme Trumpian policies he can, including opposing the admittance of Afghan allies into the US after the fall of Kabul. Mandel has taken a sizable lead in fundraising and polling, having brought in around $1.4 million in contributions this last quarter, beating out Vance and the three other top candidates.
In Georgia, the race for Senator Raphael Warnock’s (D-GA) seat is shaping up to be among the most important races in the field, and for good reason. The seat is a prime target for the GOP, after Warnock won it in the January 2021 run-off which gave Democrats their Senate majority. Warnock’s future is still very uncertain as Georgia’s first black Senator and as a Democrat representing a Southern state, but his challenger seems to have already materialized. The top contender for the GOP nomination is Heisman trophy-winning former football star Herschel Walker, who has virtually eliminated his competition according to polling data. Walker as a candidate shares many qualities seen in Trump as a candidate: a lack of political experience, major name recognition, an alleged abusive history with women and relatively non-specific political positions. These similarities make some sense, given that it was Trump, a longtime friend of Walker’s, who convinced him to run, and who has already full-heartedly endorsed Walker’s candidacy. What is yet to be seen is how, in the general election, these qualities will affect the GOP’s chances of taking back Georgia. In terms of polling, hypothetical head-to-heads have Warnock and Walker in a dead heat, but in terms of fundraising, Warnock outraised Walker in the last quarter of 2021 by nearly $5 million.
Fundraising is more difficult in the Pennsylvania Senate race to replace retiring Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA). At first, the GOP race appeared to be another contest between Trumpian and anti-Trump Republicans, with veteran Sean Parnell squaring off against real estate developer Jeff Bartos, but after Parnell suspended his campaign following accusations of spousal and child abuse, two new faces entered the race. The first is David McCormick, a hedge fund CEO and former Bush Administration official, and the second is Mehmet Oz, better known as the celebrity doctor from The Dr. Oz Show. Both men have deep pockets, and have been flooding the Pennsylvania airwaves with millions of dollars of ad-time, fighting to portray themselves, both millionaires, as men of the people. Across the political aisle, however, the Democrats have a somewhat different situation on their hands. Without the personal fortunes of GOP rivals, progressive Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman (D-PA) has proved to be a grass-roots fundraising powerhouse, amassing $12 million by the end of 2021 mostly from small donors, and the most recent polling puts him at a 30 point lead over his closest competition, moderate Representative Conor Lamb (D-PA). Despite these figures, the Pennsylvania party establishment has made it more and more clear that they would prefer anyone but Fetterman for the Democratic nominee in the crucial purple state. Whether the party comes round to his candidacy is yet to be seen, and Fetterman himself is betting that he won’t even need them.
These races are only some of the important races that have already started taking shape ahead of the primaries in the spring and summer. The stakes of these elections are high, given the precarious balance of power currently held in Washington, and any flipped seats will completely alter that balance. As such, the money that already flowed into these races in 2021 is probably just the beginning as candidates and political operatives prepare themselves for whatever lies ahead.
