Big G.O.P. Donors Stir Senate Runs
Source: NY Times
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Democrats in races that will help determine control of the Senate are rapidly burning through their campaign cash, whittling away their financial advantage over Republican opponents as they fend off attacks from conservative groups, according to figures released through Friday.
The spending on both sides underscores the critical role that outside conservative groups are playing as Republicans try to retake the Senate. In state after state, organizations like Americans for Prosperity, the nonprofit linked to the conservative billionaires David H. and Charles G. Koch, have kept Democrats on the defensive with a barrage of negative ads while establishment-backed Republican candidates raise money and navigate their way through primaries.
In Alaska, the Democratic incumbent, Senator Mark Begich, spent about as much money as he raised during the first three months of the year, while Dan Sullivan, a Republican candidate and former state attorney general, increased his fund-raising and substantially narrowed Mr. Begich’s advantage in cash on hand.
In Montana, Senator John Walsh, a Democrat, spent almost three-quarters of the money he raised since January, ending with about $700,000. Representative Bruce Braley of Iowa, the likely Democratic nominee for Senate, spent over 60 percent of the cash he raised.
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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/us/politics/conservative-firepower-has-senate-democrats-playing-defense.html?partner=EXCITE&ei=5043
Senator John Walsh of Montana, center, at the Senate Dirksen Office Building on Capitol Hill in February. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times