WASHINGTON – Republican Cicely Davis, a political neophyte considered a long shot to win her race, has raised almost $2 million in her bid to unseat Rep. Ilhan Omar, the latest filings with the Federal Elections Commission show.
[image_caption]Cicely Davis[/image_caption]
“Omar is someone who many Republicans can’t stand, and that’s reflected in this fundraising total,” said Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “You can see this in other races across the country – like in Georgia, where Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Democratic opponent has also raised a ton of money in a district that just functionally is not winnable for a Democrat.”
Kondik also said, “House races are very much nationalized, both in terms of how the results often reflect a district’s presidential partisanship and also how donors from all over the country focus on certain races.”
“The national parties highlight winnable races to try to direct donors to the races and candidates where they can make a difference, but donors also get wrapped up in defeating controversial members on the other side, even if those members hold districts in which general elections are not competitive, as is the case with Omar, Greene, and others.” Kondik said.
In her most recent race for re-election, Omar was challenged by Republican Lacy Johnson, who raised more than twice as much campaign cash as Omar – $12 million to the lawmaker’s $5.7 million. Yet Omar won re-election with more than 64 percent of the vote, compared with Johnson’s 26 percent.
“One of the side effects of increased money in politics in the United States coupled with the lack of competitive races in the House is that money can be sent easily to candidates who have no chance of winning,” said Tim Lindberg, assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota-Morris.
According to a MinnPost analysis of candidate campaign reports for the second quarter of the year, Davis raised nearly $187,000 last quarter in itemized, individual donations (typically larger than $200). About 77 percent of these donations came from out-of -state.
But most of the money Davis raised in the second quarter – nearly $525,000 – came from smaller, nonitemized donations. And although Omar and Davis are legions apart when it comes to political ideology, they both have raised a lot of campaign cash outside of Minnesota.
Omar received about 92 percent of the nearly $252,000 in second quarter itemized donations from out-of-state donors. She also received about $88,000 in nonitemized donations.
Omar campaign spokesman Jeremy Slevin said the lawmaker is “proud to run a campaign powered by small-dollar, grassroots donors that does not take any corporate or PAC (political action committee) money.”
[image_credit]Samuels for Congress[/image_credit][image_caption]Don Samuels[/image_caption]
However, before Omar can face Republican opponent Davis, she must win the Democratic primary election on Aug. 9, in which she is challenged by former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels.
Samuels outraised Omar in fundraising in the second quarter, attracting about $594,000 to Omar’s $380,000. Samuels also ended the quarter with more money in his campaign account ($530,000,) than Omar ($460,000) and Davis ($228,000.) Unlike his rivals, Samuels received about 80% of his itemized donations from Minnesota residents.
Ettinger makes big loan to his campaign
While the 5th District race is attracting a lot of campaign cash, it isn’t the only expensive congressional race in Minnesota. In the 2nd District, Rep. Angie Craig (D) is fending off a serious challenge from Republican Tyler Kistner. Craig raised more than $1.4 million in the quarter, while Kistner raised less than half of that, about $491,000.
[image_caption]Rep. Angie Craig[/image_caption]
“In the 2nd District it’s no surprise that money is pouring in from out-of-state,” said Lindberg. “This is one of the few House seats Republicans could pick up in November, so ensuring that the Republican candidate, Kistner, has an adequate cash supply is key to winning the district, especially given the large size of money that Craig started with.”
[image_credit]Kistner for Congress[/image_credit][image_caption]Tyler Kistner[/image_caption]
Meanwhile, the special election to fill former Rep. Jim Hagedorn’s 1st District seat is also attracting a lot of campaign money. Hagedorn died in February and Republican Brad Finstad and Democrat Jeff Ettinger are competing to fill the remainder of Hagedorn’s term in a special election that will be held on primary day, Aug. 9.
[image_credit]Ettinger for Congress[/image_credit][image_caption]Jeff Ettinger[/image_caption]
Meanwhile, Finstad has raised about $610,000, a considerable amount given the short campaign period of the special election.
FEC data shows congressional campaigns are becoming more expensive each cycle. In the first 15 months of this cycle, congressional candidates raised about $1.8 billion. In the first 15 months of the 2020 cycle, candidates raised about $1.4 billion. In 2018, that figure was $1.2 billion. And 10 years ago, in 2012, it was $884 million.
[image_caption]Brad Finstad[/image_caption]
He said the transfer of money “between political organizations or campaigns to be used for whatever purpose it is deemed most useful for,” is a concern.
“It is harder than ever to figure out where the money came from, even if we know where it is spent,” Lindberg said.
I’m not sure that focusing on fundraising yields a very good understanding of what’s at stake in the 2022 mid-terms.
American campaign finance is an jumble of incoherent principles, leavened with a fair amount of corruption. That’s what the Repub Supreme Court has fashioned it to be with its (many) dubious rulings as to what the constitution supposedly requires.
And if this “system” of finance really is compelled by the constitution, if these “conservative” judicial rulings are correct, then that’s just another indication that the constitution is a failed document, a suicide pact.
There is a lot of money to be made in races where there is a popular local candidate in a safe seat who has become the target of attacks in the national media. Vulnerable individuals in other states can be persuaded to send small contributions in the belief that money will be used in a real attempt to defeat a candidate who has been continuously vilified by whatever cable tv news show they watch. Instead, the money goes to, well nobody really knows where. The candidate they support will lose badly, but a number of different people will make quite a lot of money from the defeat.
The heavy fundraising for a Republican sacrificial lamb in the Fifth has nothing to do with electing a candidate in that district. It is more likely targeted at the voters in the Second district and, perhaps to a lesser extent, in the Third. Rep. Omar is a polarizing figure nationally, and she is frequently mentioned as a personification of political evil. Voters outside the Fifth can’t vote against her directly any more than they can vote against Reps. Ocasio-Cortez or Tlaib, but they can vote against those whom they are told are in league with them (reality be damned).
This is probably the source of that money targeting progressives, new or incumbent. https://www.democracynow.org/2022/7/19/maryland_donna_edwards_aipac_israel_palestine?fbclid=IwAR1qe5SlHo-WYnZwrcAv5QnE48Lj4z_4suXJVfli4C06wjv9bn95VJXfF8g
Let me remind the author that Tim Walz represented the 1st for along time.
Jeff Ettinger led a unionized workforce at Hormel, but unlike the former execs in Austin, after the P9 strike, Ettinger came to Austin and stayed. He has a reputation as a community supporter, a family man and a person of real substance and genuine leadership, unlike Finstadt, who has only the Trump elevator upon which to ride.
I think the 1st will go to the more mature, more experienced, more invested in MN and the 1st– the Dem candidate.
__________________
BTW, the article mentions Rep.Ilhan Omar, who not only works in the Congress, but today took her values to the steps of the SCOTUS over the removal of women’s rights. I think she got arrested.
It’s time the Omar haters took a look at the quality of person she is and the job she is doing of representing her constituents. She is one of our very best. Her opponents should try to explain their reason for their distaste of her politics. I think it is a racialized minority who work tirelessly to defeat her when she so obviously is popular among those she represents.
Why are Republicans so angry at her? She speaks the truth and they can’t stand to hear it from a Somali immigrant.
“It’s time the Omar haters took a look at the quality of person she is…”
Yeah, the video of her walking with her arms behind her back as if handcuffed and occasionally looking over her shoulder to ensure a cop was still there was laugh-out-loud hilarious.
“laugh out loud hilarious” you say? i have yet to see anything as hilarious as Cruze, Jordan, Miller, Hawley, Boubert, DesSantis, et. al. when they go ‘off the wall’ defending Republican racism and misogamy.
So true, I was particularly impressed by her feigning to be handcuffed, which she then had her staff confirm to Omar’s personal media shill Esme Murphy.
Richard is quite correct, a perfect demonstration of ger quality.
When is rightwing media not directing laughter (not to say hatred) at Omar? Or any other elected progressive woman, especially if non-white?
This is a feature, not a bug.
Minnesota First District a safe district? In 2020, Representative Omar beat her Republican opponent by a 65% to 26% margin. That fits my definition of a safe district.
Minnesota District 1 November 2016 election results –
DFL – Tim Walz – Incumbent 50.3% 169,074
Republican Jim Hagedorn 49.6% 166,526
No other candidate (0.1% write-in votes)
Source: Minnesota Secretary of State
After Walz ran for and won as governor, Hagedorn ran again and won in 2018 and 2020 in very close elections. In 2018, he won by 3,400 votes (50.1%). In 2020, he won by 11,400 votes (48.6%). In 2020, the Minnesota District 1 Grassroots candidate got 5.8% of the votes based on 21,500 votes (about double Hagedorn’s winning margin). A Star Tribune article (https://www.startribune.com/gop-recruited-pot-party-candidate-to-pull-votes-from-dfler-he-said/572888651/)) shows that the Minnesota Republican party, then led by Hagedorn’s wife, offered Grassroots party candidates money to enter multiple races as spoilers.
In three elections, Hagedorn won 49.6%, 50.1% and 48.6% of the vote. If national pundits want to call those safe margins – perhaps they look more carefully at their crystal balls.
Hagedorn faced ethical questions, nationally Republicans preach the big lie and Minnesota Republicans will target abortion, contraception and gay marriage. Will we have to start flying 10 year victims of rape out of state to get abortions, and having Minnesota Republicans on Fox News questioning the truth of the story or saying that making children be mothers is moral?
I hope that the Republicans consider this a safe seat – they could be in for a big surprise. By continuing to restrict voting in a state with the nation’s highest turnout, wage their war against women and pick an anti-vaxxer doctor to lead their ticket (he has already announced his first vendetta if elected) perhaps the district with its new lines will pick someone with common sense. Someone who thinks for himself, not just about what he will gain from elected office.
It’s going to take an honest democrat, like Don Samuels, to expose the ballot box stuffing that has been responsible for Omar’s overwhelming victories. We need this to happen or the 42% of the people who no longer trust our election system will increase.
Call the cops and make your charges there.
OTHERWISE, I believe you are simply doing the deny the election results dance. I don’t consider that harmless rhetoric.
If you don’t have evidence the cops won’t listen either.
You don’t suppose those “overwhelming victories” could be attributed in any way to the fact that the Republican Party has effectively written off the Fifth District by allowing itself to be dominated by raging reactionaries?
Hmm, don’t baseless claims about election results still get one thrown off Twitter? I think I’m starting to see why you say you have been banned from some newspaper sites! In any event, this baseless falsehood about “ballot box stuffing” anywhere in MN should also be deleted as corrosive and delusional.
Dude, you can’t peddle election fraud lies AND pretend to talk about “trust” at the same time.
Omar’s biggest threat is the radical centrists and moderates in her own Party who simply cannot abide liberal’s. All I can say is that if they manage to knock her off the ballot they’re not giving me a new Democrat to vote for, they’re giving me a reason to not vote for Democrats.
Ilhan Omar is far from my favorite politician. But the fact is, she is young, she seems to want the job, and she has figured out how not to embarrass me. For Congress, a job that doesn’t matter very much, those are all good reasons for voting for her. In a mere 20 years or so, she will have enough seniority to matter.
Her opponent, on the other hand is old, way too old to be a freshman Congressman. Whatever his good intentions, however much he lives in Minneapolis, as opposed to what? Duluth? Cleveland? He will never be in his congressional career anything more than a potted plant. He just won’t be there long enough to matter.
I guess I’m not so much interested in the amounts of money but rather what candidates and campaigns do with the money.
I just got a Don Samuels campaign flyer that unfortunately falls back on the old failed strategy of the last Omar challenger… which is a strategy of hostility and dishonesty. At first it looked like Samuels was going to avoid that toxic sludge but I guess they just can’t resist. So much like his predecessor (who’s name I don’t recall) we have a bright and cheery cover only to find an attack ad once we open it up. Samuels is pretending that Omar is still a champion of an initiative that was long since voted down, and that the only thing that matters is support for Joe Biden, and that “centrist/moderates” who killed the Green New Deal are the greenest of the greens. To be fair, Samuels is thus far a little less hostile, but I’m guessing he’ll get more hostile as the vote gets nearer. All I can say is that the more “centrist/moderate” Democrats use Republican rhetoric to attack Omar, the more dedicated I become to Omar. But maybe that’s just me.
Meanwhile, I never lived in Samuels’s district but the only thing I remember about him was his frequent and reliable votes to put his constituent’s tax dollars into projects that in no way benefitted them, like stadiums and arenas. I also don’t recall seeing any great revival or emergence of security, safety, or prosperity up in Ward 5 during Samuels’s tenure, but maybe I missed it.