Photo: Sen. Mark Kelly, left, has raised more than $75 million for his re-election bid, the second-highest Senate war chest in the country. While the Democrat’s fundraising swamped the $9.9 million raised by GOP challenger Blake Masters, outside groups have spent almost $50 million to oppose Kelly. (File photos by Alexia Faith/Cronkite News)
Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly continued to widen his fundraising lead over GOP challenger Blake Masters, who still trailed the incumbent despite heavy spending on Masters’ behalf by outside conservative groups.
Kelly, a Democrat, had raised nearly $75.5 million as of Sept. 30, and still had $13.2 million on hand, according to his most recent Federal Election Commission reports. Masters reported raising $9.9 million in the same period, with $2.8 million in the bank.
Libertarian Senate nominee Marc J. Victor was a distant third, reporting that he had raised $129,103 with $1,606 on hand at the end of the third quarter.
But those same FEC reports show that outside groups have spent almost $50 million against Kelly compared to $9 million to oppose Masters.
The reports come as the race between the two has narrowed, but Kelly maintains a comfortable lead – and experts say that while his fundraising lead won’t win the race for him, it certainly won’t hurt. Kelly’s fundraising was second highest for a Senate campaign in the country.
“Money is your ammunition to communicate,” said Mike Noble, chief of research at OH Predictive Insights, a nonpartisan research and data analytics firm.
Noble said Kelly’s ability to raise money “like a maniac” gives him a strong advantage in the upcoming election, especially against a candidate who is “newer to the scene.” But, he said, just because Kelly can out-spend Masters does not mean he has the race locked up.
The most recent poll aggregation from FiveThirtyEight showed Masters gaining on Kelly, going from a 10.2-point deficit in August to trailing Kelly by just 6.4% last Thursday.
An OH Predictive Insights poll from earlier this month showed 46% of likely voters said they would vote for Kelly, compared to 33% for Masters and 15% for Victor, with the rest still undecided. The survey of 674 voters has a margin of error of 3.77%.
Noble said the economy could still shift the outcome of Senate races around the country.
“If things get a little bit better, it is going to help Democrats,” Noble said. “If it starts to go south, that could potentially make this a much tighter race or could, possibly, push Masters over the top.”
Masters entered the race after a contentious Republican primary that drained a lot of his funding. That has forced his campaign to rely more on support from outside political action committees, Noble said.
According to the FEC, those outside PACs spent $49.4 million in opposition to Kelly, compared to $15.4 million that was spent supporting his reelection. The net outside spending on Masters was much narrower, with $9 million against and $8 million for.
Kelly’s campaign manager Emma Brown brushed off the outside spending, saying in a statement that as that money pours into the state “attacking Senator Kelly’s record, this campaign continues to be fueled by grassroots donors who contribute what they can, when they can.”
And relying on PACs comes with a drawback, said Jessica Taylor, Senate and governors editor of the Cook Political Report. Even if PACs from groups like the Heritage Foundation, Club for Growth or the Saving Arizona PAC, funded by tech billionaire Peter Thiel, were to pump more money into Masters’ campaign, they would be “subject to much higher ad rates at this juncture” than the candidates themselves, she said.
“Ultimately, we see the difference here happening in ad spending, particularly, where Masters has had to rely more on outside sources,” Taylor said. “Kelly’s ads, because they are paid for by the candidate instead of an outside entity, are just reaching more people.”
Masters’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
Taylor said she was not surprised by Kelly’s fundraising, which was second only to the $111 million raised by Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock – another Democrat who took office after a special election in 2020. With such a short turnaround between those races and their reelection campaigns, she said, Kelly and Warnock have not been able to stop “campaigning or being in campaign mode, especially in fundraising mode.”
Across the U.S., Democratic Senate candidates are outpacing Republicans, making up eight of the top 10 fundraisers in Senate races.
“I think every quarter the competition is between Mark Kelly and Raphael Warnock,” Taylor said. “They both had the run in 2020 for those special elections and then they had to turn around and run again in 2022.”
5 thoughts on “Kelly continues to raise ‘like a maniac,’ dwarfing Masters in Senate race – Cronkite News”
Mark Kelly’s voting record shows he votes with Biden -Pelosi-Schumer 97% of the time. That alone should defeat him November 8th. However most people are not political and only become aware of candidates around this time as their phone, emails, TV commercials and mail boxes are filled with competing messages. Add to this the message from the Libertarian Party that is conservative and appealing to many who are fed up with the Republican Party’s passive performance in the past. Now we Republican conservatives face a threat from Libertarian votes that only helps the Biden administration. I pray most Arizonians will not throw away their vote. Blake Masters must win if we are to take our country back from the Democrat socialists destroying our economy and country.
Mr. Steele, you wrote “Blake Masters must win if we are to take our country back from the Democrat socialists destroying our economy…” yet the facts do not bear out your premise. The U.S. economy hit it’s low point in the second quarter of 2020, it has been rising until the last several months, when the increase in interest rates by the fed has put the brakes on borrowing to try to curb inflation. The current U.S. economy is larger than at any point in the Trump administration, and the unemployment rate is under 4% which is considered to be full employment. If you have data that says otherwise please feel free to share it with us. I get my data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Mark Kelly is a Radical Left Money Thief. He is directly responsible for siphoning off US Taxpayer money (that should be used to SERVE THE U.S. TAXPAYER) to entitlement programs meant only to BUY VOTES FOR RADICAL LEFT MONEY THIEVES, to Ukraine, where it’s gobble up by corrupt politicians and to the idiotic Green New Steal which is nothing more than a money grab by the Racial Left.
Anyone that votes for Mark Kelly can expect to see their bank accounts raided even further and they can only blame themselves.
For the Republican Golden Ticket, see yavgop.org and be sure to vote NO on Propositions 209, 308, 310 and 211. Beware the filthy Democrat tricks! No free money for illegal aliens! No tax hikes! No to the so-called Voter Right to Know proposition! It has nothing to do with Voters, only with the ability of Radical Leftist to determine who is financially backing their opponents so they can attack them with typical Radical Left Democrat filth.
Time to take our country back from the Radical Left Money Thieves. MAGA!!!
No to 209, 308, 310 and 211!!
Mr. Steele, you wrote “Blake Masters must win if we are to take our country back from the Democrat socialists destroying our economy…” yet the facts do not bear out your premise. The U.S. economy hit it’s low point in the second quarter of 2020, it has been rising until the last several months, when the increase in interest rates by the fed has put the brakes on borrowing to try to curb inflation. The current U.S. economy is larger than at any point in the Trump administration, and the unemployment rate is under 4% which is considered to be full employment. If you have data that says otherwise please feel free to share it with us. I get my data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Woo, woooooo, here comes The Clue Train, next stop are people who quote only the data that supports their Radical Left positions and people that are so naive they get their “data” from government bureaucracies that jump when the Radical Left says jump.
So, let’s clear up the confusion, shall we?
RECORD HIGH INFLATION BECAUSE OF THE RADICAL LEFT
RECESSION IS ALREADY HERE AND IT’S GOING TO GET WORSE BECAUSE OF THE RADICAL LEFT
INSANE SPENDING BY THE RADICAL LEFT IS, IN FACT, THE THEFT OF MONEY FROM OUR CHILDREN
US TAXPAYER MONEY (OUR MONEY) IS STOLEN EVERY DAY AND SENT TO UKRAINE, ILLEGAL INVADERS, CHINA, THE UN, WHO AND OTHER PLACES WHERE THE MONEY WILL BE STOLEN OR DISAPPEAR NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN, DOING ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD FOR THE PEOPLE THAT COUGHED UP THE CASHOLA TO BEGIN WITH.
HUGE DROP IN DOW, NASDAQ, S&P 500 BECAUSE OF THE RADICAL LEFT
THE PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEMS INFESTED BY PARASITE ADMINISTRATORS THAT ARE SUCKING THE LIFE BLOOD OUT OF OUR MOST PRECIOUS RESOURCE….AMERICAN CHILDREN.
401K’s DEVASTATED BECAUSE OF THE RADICAL LEFT
OUR ENERGY SUPPLIES ARE INSECURE BECAUSE OF THE RADICAL LEFT
OUR ENEMIES ARE EMBOLDENED BY JOE “ELECTION THIEF” BIDEN’S ABJECT WEAKNESS.
Oooh, oooh, but the GDP is higher now than it was in 2nd Quarter of 2020 when the RADICAL LEFT SHUT DOWN THE US ECONOMY. Oooh, oooh, the trade deficit is lower now than in the same quarter of 2019. Oooh, oooh, gasoline prices dropped from $5 a gallon to $4.25 a gallon and that means Joe Biden is putting money blah, blah, blah, blah.
FACT: American are hurting badly
FACT: Americans are hurting badly because of Radical Leftists like Mark Kelly. He steals taxpayer money, he buys votes, he does exactly what Chuck Schumer tells him to do. Only fools like Deputy Dawg support the Radical Left and people like The Space Clown and Blondie the Fake Firebrand.
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