By the time voters went to the polls last week, outside groups had spent more than $454 million to influence campaigns. But there's little evidence that all that spending benefited Republicans much more than Democrats, as the final tallies on spending were actually pretty close.
A total of $197.4 million was spent backing Republican candidates, while groups spent $181.1 million for Democrats, according to Federal Election Commission data compiled by the Sunlight Foundation.
Eliza Newlin Carney writes at National Journal:
The Crossroads groups pulled in more than $71 million, organizers say – far beyond its original $50 million target -- but reported only $38.7 million in independent campaign expenditures. Even accounting for some overhead, that still leaves potentially tens of millions leftover for pending policy fights over taxes, health care and climate issues, not to mention the 2012 presidential race.
“We’re already focusing very intently on the government-expanding agenda of President Obama and the Democratic Congress,” said American Crossroads president and CEO Steven Law at a post-election briefing.
Law called the assault on secret corporate money by President Obama and congressional Democrats “a real strategic mistake.” Democratic attacks on the Citizens United ruling and on conservative outside money “at best made them look seriously out of touch, and at worst made them look like politicians,” Law said.
