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The Associated Press reported a couple of months ago on the race in Georgia’s 14th congressional district, where incumbent Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene continues to raise plenty of money for her re-election campaign. The AP noted, however, that she’d been outraised by her Democratic rival, Marcus Flowers.
In fact, as of a few months ago, Flowers, a first-time candidate, had raised more campaign funds than any non-incumbent House candidate in the entire country.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported yesterday that this trend hasn’t changed at all. By some measures, it’s actually intensifying.
Democratic challenger Marcus Flowers outraised U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. He raised $2.4 million in the first three months of 2022. compared to her $1.1 million.
In other words, in the first quarter of this election year, Greene’s Democratic rival outraised her by more than a two-to-one margin.
Politico added that Flowers’ fundraising success “is up there with the highest House hauls, period.” That includes Democrats and Republicans, incumbents and challengers.
Politico’s report added, “Money doesn’t mean a race is competitive. Donors from around the country will take out their dislike or frustration with polarizing figures through donations to their competitors — even if there’s no real chance of the challengers prevailing.”
That’s both accurate and important. Indeed, though this may seem counterintuitive, it’s a safe bet that Republican leaders are quite pleased to see Democratic donors investing so generously in Georgia’s 14th.
To understand why, let’s revisit an item from a few months ago.
As we discussed at the time, I knew a guy years ago who gambled far too much, and who was especially fond of betting on sporting events. His hobby was never my cup of tea, but I remember a lesson he told me about how he approached his wagers: “It’s important to remove emotion from the equation.”
The gambler had his personal favorites — teams he rooted for, hometown players he liked, etc. — but he understood that there’s a difference between watching sports as a fan and looking at the same games while putting money on the line.
Smart money has to be colder and more calculated. Placing bets based on which teams a fan likes — or conversely, which teams a fan hates — is an easy way to lose money.
All of this comes to mind, of course, watching Marcus Flowers raise millions of dollars. To be sure, upsets happen, and political prognostications are sometimes proven wrong, but by all appearances, Flowers is a major underdog. Georgia’s 14th is one of the reddest red districts in the United States. Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden in this district by more than 48 points. Locals elected Greene — one of Congress’ most extreme right-wing members in recent history — for a reason.
And yet, her Democratic challenger is raising quite a bit of money, despite overwhelming odds, almost certainly because Greene has so many detractors who are eager to see her lose. These donors probably aren’t thinking about partisan voter indexes and recent electoral history; they’re thinking about trying to help replace a radical lawmaker.
It’s akin to gamblers placing bets based on their preferred outcomes — without regard for the odds.
In a recent New York Times podcast, Ezra Klein had an interesting conversation with Amanda Litman, the co-founder of Run for Something, which recruits and supports young, progressive candidates who want to run for office. She touched on this dynamic as part of a larger conversation:
“...I don’t want to fault anyone for giving to the thing that inspires them. Donate where you feel like you can make the most good. But I do think there’s a clear failure to match goals and actions. If your goal is to win and build sustainable power, throwing $90 million at Amy McGrath for Senate just because she’s taking on Mitch McConnell is not the way to do that. It just isn’t. And that is where things, I think, get a little lost in translation.”
Over the last year or so, Amy McGrath’s Senate candidacy has taken on almost mythical proportions in Democratic circles. The Kentuckian ran a strong-but-unsuccessful congressional campaign in 2018, which led Democratic officials to recruit her to take on Mitch McConnell in 2020.
The Republican’s critics — of which there are many nationwide — could barely contain their generosity toward McGrath, who ended up raising $88 million, which was a staggering sum for a longshot candidacy.
She nevertheless lost by about 20 points. In fact, McConnell has run seven Senate campaigns in Kentucky, and McGrath — who didn’t quite reach 40 percent of the vote — fared worse than nearly all of her predecessors, despite the resources at her disposal.
This wasn’t McGrath’s fault. She ran as good a campaign as possible in an increasingly red state against a powerful incumbent who shared a ballot with Trump. McGrath didn’t win this race because she couldn’t win this race.
But the folks who threw $88 million at her campaign apparently didn’t know that. These contributors never spoke to the gambler I knew who said, “It’s important to remove emotion from the equation.” In fact, they reached the opposite conclusion: They detested McConnell; they wanted to see him lose; so they reached for their wallets to boost the Republican’s opponent.
The chances of success were irrelevant. The fact that there were plenty of other, more competitive, likeminded candidates they could’ve donated to was an important detail they simply overlooked.
In 2020, this became a noticeable problem for donors who invested millions in campaigns that stood little chance of success. There’s already some preliminary evidence that contributors are repeating the mistakes in 2022.
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