Competitive

Outside Spending Shows How Few of the House Races Are Competitive

By Derek Willis

How small is the field of competitive House races? So narrow that just 25 contests account for 80 percent of all reported outside spending in the general election.

The Cook Political Report rates 38 seats either as tossups or leaning toward one party or the other, but among groups operating outside the district like super PACs, the concentration is even tighter: Half of all independent spending reported to the Federal Election Commission for general election races has gone to just a dozen seats, with two apiece in Arizona and Illinois.

Arizona’s First District, where the Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick faces the Republican Andy Tobin, has drawn more than $10 million in outside spending, almost all of it for negative messages against the two candidates. (It is not the most outside money ever reported in a House race — that distinction goes to Michigan’s Seventh District in 2010, when $12.4 million was spent.)

Close behind is California’s Seventh District, where a freshman Democrat, Ami Bera, faces a former Republican congressman, Doug Ose. That race, which attracted more than $8 million in independent expenditures in 2012, has topped $9.6 million this year. Arizona’s Second District, where Ron Barber, a Democratic incumbent, is facing Martha McSally, a Republican and retired Air Force colonel, has attracted $9.5 million. Those three races alone represent 15 percent of all reported outside spending in House general elections.

The focus is even tighter for the two national party committees devoted to House races and for super PACs with close ties to House leaders. A full 88 percent of the $137 million in independent spending in the general election has gone to 25 races from those groups — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the House Majority PAC on the left, and the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Congressional Leadership Fund on the right.

The bulk of House contests have seen virtually no outside spending this year, with 193 having less than $10,000 spent. You could form a slim majority with the 220 races that have had less than $25,000 in independent spending for the general election.

As with Senate races, most of the outside money spent in House contests goes to television advertising, with smaller amounts on direct mail, online ads and polling. About 82 percent of the outside spending in House races is on negative messages, in line with previous election cycles.