Can A Green Wave Turn The House Blue?

A large number of Democratic challengers are outraising GOP opponents

- Joshua Green, with Bill Allison

Democrats are hoping a blue wave of support will carry them to victory in this fall’s elections. In the meantime, they’ve caught a green wave of cash— the torrent of money pouring into Democratic campaign coffers helped 73 House candidates outraise Republican incumbents and opponents in races for open seats in the second quarter, a Bloomberg analysis of Federal Election Commission data shows. The more candidates the Democrats can field with the means to run competitive races, the larger the potential blue wave could be, if, as most experts anticipate, a motivated anti-Trump electorate shows up to vote in November. Democrats need to pick up 23 seats to retake control of the House.

The surge of Democrats who raised more money than their GOP opponents last quarter is testimony not only to widespread antipathy to Trump among liberals and many independents, but also to the fundraising acumen of the party committee and many of the new grass-roots groups that sprang up in the wake of Trump’s victory.

Since Trump’s election, Democratic enthusiasm has been apparent in all sorts of ways: the proliferation of anti-Trump marches, the record number of new candidates running for office, increased turnout in primaries and special elections, and surveys showing left-leaning voters more invested in November’s election than their counterparts. That energy has also translated into dollars. In the second quarter of this year, non-incumbent Democratic House candidates raised more than three times the amount they did in the same period in 2014. That works out to an average of $151,000 per candidate, compared with $101,000 in 2014.