Almost $4 billion will be spent for this year’s midterm election, the Center for Responsive Politics is projecting. That figure makes this year’s election by far the most expensive midterm ever. The candidates and parties alone will combine to spend about $2.7 billion, while outside groups will likely spend close to $900 million on their own — a figure that veers close to the $1.3 billion spent by outside groups in 2012, when the hyper-expensive presidential race was fueling the fire.
By the end of the battle, when totals for every category are added together, Team Red will outspend Team Blue, CRP projects. GOP and conservative-leaning candidates, party committees and outside groups will spend at least $1.92 billion, compared to at least $1.76 billion their rivals on the Democratic and liberal-leaning side will spend.
In several categories — spending by House and Senate campaign committees, and money spent by secretive outside groups – conservative or Republican groups are projected to outdo their more liberal counterparts by a wide margin. Democrats and liberals will hold a slight lead when it comes to House and Senate party committee spending, and in the amount spent overall by outside groups. That lead in outside group spending, however, does not include money that groups spent on certain kinds of ads that didn’t have to be reported to the FEC if they were aired more than two months before the election (or 30 days before a primary); conservative groups appear to have dominated in that category.
The 2010 midterm cost $3.6 billion; this one will run an estimated $333 million more than that. The congressional portion of the 2012 race cost about $3.6 billion as well.
These projections are based on spending totals reported by campaigns and committees and outside groups through June 30 or Aug. 31, depending on the Federal Election Commission filing schedule they follow. A more detailed projection of the total cost of the election, taking into account numbers current through the end of September, will be released by CRP next week. These projections were developed by CRP researchers using models based on the 2010 election cycle. The Center has been projecting the cost of the election in every cycle since 1996.
