Between October 19 and the end of the election cycle, the 3 House candidates who got the most money in contributions of $1,000 and more all lost— Democrat Susan Wild beat right-wing self-funder ($2,010,000) Lisa Scheller; Democrat Mike Levin beat right-wing self funder ($2,514,773) Brian Maryott; and Republican Mike Lawler beat DCCC head and all-around doofus Sean Patrick Maloney.
Wondering how the really big self-funders did this cycle? Well, almost all of them lost, thank goodness.
Dan Goldman (D-NY) is a Congressman-elect and he used a mere $4,888,468 of his inheritance to buy the seat
Shri Thanedar (D-MI) is also a Congressman-elect. He spent $6,180,374 of his own fortune.
GOP crackpot and Trump ally Lynda Blanchard (R-AL) wasted $7,123,178 first running for a Senate seat, quickly dropping out and taking on the governor before losing in a massive landslide.
Perry Johnson (R-MI) spent $7,575,000 in the Michigan gubernatorial primary which he lost to joke candidate Tudor Dixon.
Dan Dowd (D-CA) decided to throw away $7,648,600 on a whim, taking on Gavin Newsom for no particular reason other than two have a platform to attack Elon Musk’s self-driving technology. Never heard of him? I live here and never did either.
Kevin Rinke (R-MI), a rich used car salesman, spent $10 million and lost to Tudor Dixon just like Perry Johnson did.
Matt Dolan (R-OH) wasted $10,597,000 of his inheritance in the GOP Senate primary
Wall Street crook Harry Wilson (R-NY) spent $10,997,442 of his own to be beaten by Lee Zeldin, Andrew Giuliani and Rob Astorino in the New York gubernatorial primary. All that money bought him 49,609 votes.
Insurrectionist, semen-seller and MAGA asshole Charles Herbster (R-NE) bought an endorsement from Trump and spent $11,626,862, but failed to go beyond a bunch of typical GOP sex scandals and lost the primary.
Bob Stefanowski (R-CT) was willing to pay $12 million for a rematch with Ned Lamont. He lost again, 56-43%.
Jared Polis (D-CO) was reelected bigly and didn’t seem to mind spending $12,138,000.
Today David Trone (D-MD) was declared the winner in his reelection bid but it cost him $12,552,000. He’s closing in on $50,000,000 in congressional self-funding since 2016. I wonder what he gets out of it. He hasn’t made a name for himself in any way other than as a self-funder.
Alex Lasry (D-WI) spent $14,150,636 of daddy’s money in the Senate primary before dropping out with a whimper just before election day, having already poisoned the well against Mandela Barnes, who lost by a bit over a point on Tuesday.
Worthless beer heiress Trudy Busch Valentine (D-MO) bought the Democratic nomination and made not even a blip on the radar screen after that. She wasted $14,380,737 of her inheritance to lose to one of the Erics 55.5% to 42.1%. I hope she had a good time; it’s a sera a competent Democrat could have won.
Dave McCormick (R-PA) wasted $14,398,736 to lose to Dr. Oz, who Trump’s wife thought would do well with the ladies, which he didn’t.
Mike Gibbons (R-OH) was one of the multimillionaires running in the Republican primary. He threw away $18,320,000 for the privilege of coming in 4th.
Jim Lamon (R-AZ) figured he’d bury the other candidates with his millions— and he spent $18,376,000— but then fascist billionaire Peter Thiel stepped in for his rumored ex-lover, Blake Masters, and outspent him. And Masters lost anyway.
Karrin Taylor Robson (R-AZ) spent $18,442,527 of her billionaire husband’s money to lose the gubernatorial primary to MAGAt crackpot Kari Lake.
Tim Michels (R-WI) won the primary and lost the general and all it cost him was $18,705,882
Ned Lamont (D-CT) spent $21,960,000 to hold onto the governor’s mansion.
Mehmet Oz (R-NJ) wasted $26,796,344 to lose badly in Pennsylvania to John Fetterman
The richest politician in the country, J.D. Pritzker (D-IL) spent a startling— and obscene— $152,050,000 to win reelection against a hapless MAGA nut, who he would have likely beaten if he has spent none of his own money
Another measure of the obscenity of unfettered cash flowing into American elections:
Most of the money was spent by Republicans and in the 9 regular elections, the Democrats one. The CA-22 race was a special election to fill Devin Nunes’ seat when he quit to go work for Trump and the data is polluted by someone who didn’t understand that the district numbers changed, leaving us with an absurd figure that mixes up two unrelated races. Ignore that one completely; it’s meaningless.