In some states— including the two biggest ones, California and Texas— Super Tuesday wasn’t just about the presidential primary; it was also about congressional primaries. The parties picked their House candidates in Alabama, California, North Carolina and Texas. And from the available information so far, 51 candidates spent $100,000 or more— most of them much more— from their personal fortunes to buy themselves a seat in Congress. Only two incumbents spent their own money on their campaigns, California Republican Michelle Steel ($710,000) and California Democrat Sara Jacobs ($503,801); neither had a serious opponent from their own party.
I bet you’re wondering how many of these candidates succeeded. Short version: pitifully few. Voters generally don’t like self-funders. Let’s go state by state, starting with Alabama’s new 2nd district, which was drawn specifically the offer an opportunity for Black voters to win another seat. It’s now the bluest district in the state and the former AL-02 congressman, Barry Moore fled into AL-01 for an incumbent v incumbent contest against his Republican colleague Jerry Carl. Moore won but two Republicans decided to fight it out for the privilege of being beaten by a Democrat in November. The Democrats will have an April 16 runoff between Shomari Figures (who was heavily financed by the super-corrupt crypto industry) and state House minority leader Anthony Daniels. The Republicans, Dick Brewbaker and Caroleene Dobson, spent, respectively, $750,000 and $410,000 in self-funding. In Alabama’s 6th district, two fringe MAGAts, Gerrick Wilkins and Ken McFeeters, challenged mainstream conservative Gary Palmer. Wilkins spent $128,924 of his own money but Palmer trounced them both and won outright with 83.2% of the vote. Wilkins’ $128,924 bought him 9,636 votes (10.5%).
North Carolina self-funders were a dozen Republicans + one independent:
NC-01- Laurie Buckhout (R)- $1,006,600- won the primary
NC-06- Christian Castelli (R)- $500,000- came in third (21.1%)
NC-06- Bo Hines (R)- $601,500- came in fourth (14.4%)
NC-08- John Bradford (R)- $1,251,740- lost (27.0%)
NC-08- Allan Baucom (R)- $1,000,000- lost (17.8%)
NC-09- Shelane Etchison (I)- $124,381- may be on the ballot
NC-10- Pat Harrigan (R)- $453,000- won the primary (41.2%)
NC-10- Grey Mills (R)- $250,000- lost (38.9%)- lost (38.9%)
NC-13- Kelly Daughtry (R)- $2,060,132- made the runoff (27.4%)
NC-13- Fred Von Canon (R)- $1,690,000- lost- 17.1%
NC-13- Brad Knott (R)- $250,000- made the runoff (18.7%)
NC-13- Josh McConkey (R)- $250,048- lost (7.1%, 5th place)
NC-14- Eric Levinson (R)- $137,105- dropped out.
There’s no sense of shame in Texas about people buying congressional seats. It’s what they do… and we’re not just talking about Republicans either. So far— and we have 7 months to go— 9 Republicans and 5 Democrats have been 6-figure self-funders in House races. Let’s start with Texas’ 3rd congressional district, a very red swath of Collin and Hunt County suburbs area northeast on Dallas. The PVI is R+11 and the incumbent is Keith Self, a run-of-the-mill conservative backbencher. Trump won the district by around 14.5 points. Self did even better 2 years later when he trounced Sandeep Srivastava by 23.6 points. Srivastava spent $295,001 that cycle. This cycle, with no primary opponent, he’s already put another $200,000 into his campaign.
TX-12 has been Kay Granger’s Fort Worth area congressional seat forever but with her retirement, this became prime real estate for a an ambitious Republican looking for a safe (R+12) seat to grow old in. Establishment GOP billionaires decided to keep MAGAt John O’Shea from winning by spending over half a million dollars against him. O’Shea spent $130,000 of his own for 26.4% of the vote, enough to land him in second place and the GOP runoff against Craig Goldman. There was a similar situation in TX-26 (primarily Denton County) where Michael Burgess is calling it quits. The PVI is R+13. It was Dick Armey’s seat before Burgess was elected in 2002 and his son Scott Armey is the establishment candidate this cycle. But… the heavy favorite is MAGAt Brandon Gill, who won despite the $2 million plus the GOP billionaires spent against him. Gill spent a quarter million of his own. Armey forked out $130,000 (for 14.5% of the vote) and a third big spender, Dog Robison put up $235,000 and came in 5th with 3.5%.
TX-23, stretching from San Antonio to El Paso through the Rio Grande Valley has a PVI of R+5 and the incumbent, Tony Gonzales is seen as relatively mainstream for a Texas congressman and relatively vulnerable. 4 Republicans jumped in against him and, in fact, prevented him from getting the 50% he needed to avoid a runoff. But the self-funder of the lot, Julie Clark, who spent close to a million of her own, came in a distant 3rd (with 13.9%) and won’t be part of the runoff.
In TX-27, Charles Mandel was one of 3 Republicans who decided to primary Michael Cloud. He spent $315,000 and came in second— but with just 15.1%. TX-28 is Democrat Henry Culler’s seat and he’s always seen as vulnerable. 4 Republicans competed for the honor on Tuesday and one, Jay Furman, was a self-funder ($150,616). He came in first (44.9%) but was unable to avoid a runoff. The action in TX-31 to take on Republican John Carter was between 3 Democrats. Rick Pfeil spent $125,000 and Stuart Whitlow spent $100,000. Whitlow won without a runoff.
TX-32 is the Dallas seat being given up by Colin Allred, the Democratic candidate running for Ted Cruz’s Senate seat. Conservative state Rep. Julie Johnson, financed by the police union and the shady crypto-PAC, is the likely Democratic nominee but there were 2 self-funders among the 10 Democrats competing— Raja Chaudhry, who spent $305,350 of his own and came in 6th with 3.6% and Alex Cornwallis, who forked out $104,350 and came in 8th with 3.2%.
The final Texas district with a self-funder was in TX-34, Blue Dog Vicente Gonzalez’s Latino-majority (85%) southeast Texas district with a D+9 PVI. 4 Republicans declared and one, Mauro Garza spent big: $608,638. But he came in third with 6.2% of the vote and former Congresswoman Mayra Flores took 81.2% of the vote and will face Gonzalez again in November.
In California— a different beast, since primaries don’t just pit members of the same party against each other— there were 21 candidates who spent over $100,000 each, 5 of whom spent over a million of their own. Most were eliminate on Tuesday and of the ones going on to November, their chances of winning are minimal. We’re looking at vanity candidates and delusional candidates. Let’s start with CA-14, where Republican Vin Kruttiventi spent $559,005 of his own money to beat 2 other Republicans for the honor of being defeated in November by Eric Swalwell in a solid blue district. Swalwell took 61.9% of the vote to Kruttiventi’s 19.1%. Kruttiventi’s campaign seemed to be based on his Indian ethnicity and not much else.
With Anna Eshoo retiring from her Silicon Valley district, 9 Democrats and 2 Republicans saw a cushy career ahead of them. Huge amounts of money were sloshing around that race, but just one heavy-duty self-funder, Peter Dixon (D), who wrote his campaign a $1,535,456 check—and came in a distant 5th— 7,578 votes (7.7%). Votes are still being counted, so his raw number will go up. But his percentage probably won’t and he’s definitely not going to the November runoff.
Zoe Lofgren’s 18th district moved east and put her in peril, but not from the two who ran against her this cycle, Republican Peter Hernandez, who she’ll face in November and self funder Charlene Concepción Nijmeh, Chairwoman of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, who spent $105,200 of her own… for 9.3% among the 3 of them.
The Central Valley’s CA-22 never offers the voters any decent candidates so it’s always one of the lowest turnout districts in the country. All the candidates are horrible but probably the marginally worst was Chris Mathys, a self-funding MAGAt who spent $325,000 to disappear into third place.
CA-27 had one Republican (incumbent Mike Garcia) and 2 Democrats,Steve Hill and George Whitesides, who put up $1,330,795 of his own to come in second with 30.5%. He and Garcia will meet again in November. It’s a very blue district but Garcia has managed to keep winning because the Democrats keep putting up shit candidates.
In my district (the open Adam Schiff seat— CA-30) there was one self-funder, washed up actor Ben Savage, a conservative who should have run as a Republican. He invested $1,327,000 to come in 7th with 4.1%. The open San Gabriel Valley seat from which Grace Napolitano is retiring is deep, deep blue and an easy place for a Democrat to spend the rest of their “working” life. Four, all awful, were big self funders, ex-congressman from an entirely different district (Gil Cisneros- $4,356,600, Greg Hafif- $600,000, Mary Ann Lutz- $505,000, and rapist Bob Archuleta- $225,000. Votes are still being counted but it looks like Cisneros and Republican Daniel Martinez will be the candidates in November, although that could change in the next couple of days.
Young Kim is the Republican who beat Cisneros (CA-40) and two Democrats competed to challenge her in November, Joe Kerr, who spent $539,769 of his own (for 25.7%) and Allyson Damikolas, who came in a distant third. In the Long Beach district (CA-42), former Republican turned Democrat Robert Garcia had two Democratic opponents and one Republican, John Briscoe. Briscoe ponied up a quarter million of his own and will be beaten by Garcia in November.
Over in Orange County, 2 candidates spent their own money. Incumbent Michelle Steel (R- $710,000) and Cheyenne Hunt (D- $107,000). Steel took 57% of the vote; Hunt took 7.7%. One district to the south, CA-47, Joanna Weiss (D) spent $234,120 of her own in the open Katie Porter seat but came in third with 18.9%. A bit further south (CA-49) and 4 rich Republicans paid up for a chance to take on Mike Levin in November. Margarita Wilkinson spent the most, $1,475,000 but only got 11.3% of the vote for third place. Matt Gunderson spent $700,000 and will be in the Nov. runoff (25.7%). Kate Monroe spent $163,000 for 4th place (9.9%) and poor (rich) Sheryl Adams spent $160,000 for 5th place (2.5%). And the last of the California big self-funders was incumbent Sara Jacobs, just over half a million dollars in a safe blue San Diego seat, where she took 56.3% of the vote in a 4-way race.