{"id":11656,"date":"2018-10-24T13:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T17:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=11656"},"modified":"2018-10-24T13:01:18","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T17:01:18","slug":"why-is-ben-jealous-losing-one-reason-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=11656","title":{"rendered":"Why is Ben Jealous Losing? One Reason: Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a state that voted over 60%<\/a> for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and in which 48% of voters strongly disapprove of Donald Trump<\/a>, you\u2019d think our Republican Governor would face a steep climb to reelection. In an interview with Mother Jones<\/em><\/a> early this year, Jealous claimed \u201cDonald Trump will take care of Larry Hogan.\u201d<\/p>\n

it\u2019s just not working out that way. Even if the race tightens, most polls suggest that Larry Hogan is about to romp home with the largest victory margin for a Republican in eons. Jealous\u2019s campaign manager complains feebly that the \u201cpolling is just wrong.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

What happened?<\/p>\n

All campaigns understandably like to describe themselves as people powered but money remains the mother\u2019s milk of politics. The campaign with the most money doesn\u2019t always win but more money doesn\u2019t hurt. Even if they can’t raise more than their opponent, campaigns need enough of the green to get their message out. The 2018 gubernatorial race has been no exception.<\/p>\n

In the Democratic primary, Jealous used his national connections to handily out raise his opponents<\/a>. Moreover, organizations pay attention to fundraising and Jealous leveraged his prowess to gain further support.<\/p>\n

Jealous benefited additionally from outside expenditures in excess of $1 million<\/a> that paid for a burst of television ads in Baltimore as the campaign drew to a close. Put in context, this amount exceeded the total raised by any single candidate according to the final pre-primary campaign finance report.<\/p>\n

In an uncomfortable symmetry, Jealous now finds himself in the position of his primary opponents. During the primary, Jealous boasted that he could raise in excess of $10 million for the general election. But Jealous raised $1.1 million<\/a> in the two months following the primary.<\/p>\n

Hogan took in $2.5 million<\/a> over the same short period, leaving him a total of $9.4 million to spend at in the final months of the campaign. Compounding Jealous\u2019s problems, the Republican Governors Association has spent\u00a0 $1.4 million to boost Hogan. Unlike in the primary, no outside groups seem willing to aid Jealous.<\/p>\n

As a result, Hogan has been able to pound home the message the Jealous is a far-left candidate and tout himself as a moderate fellow who survived cancer and turned around Maryland. Jealous\u2019s lack of funds has left Hogan’s attacks unanswered.<\/p>\n

Leaving aside Hogan\u2019s barrage, I could almost swear I live in Virginia. I now know that Barbara Trumpstock votes more with Big Orange than any other Virginia representative. Genial Tim Kaine has joined her as a regular presence on the box. I even saw a stray ad for Ben Cardin. Nothing from Ben Jealous.<\/p>\n

If the Jealous campaign is spending money to communicate by other means in my neck of the woods, they\u2019re hiding it well. Nothing from the welter of progressive organizations backing him either. Ads for Marc Elrich have started appearing in my web searches. Nothing from Jealous. No email. No snail mail. No phone calls. No texts. No door knocking. No carrier pigeons. Nothing.<\/p>\n

Heck, I can\u2019t recall having laid eyes on a single yard sign for Jealous.<\/p>\n

Despite his vaunted fundraising and community organizing skills at the NAACP, the campaign has not raised enough to be competitive in a statewide race against a strong opponent. Voters are learning little about the candidate or his message from the campaign. Larry Hogan has been happy to fill in the blanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a state that voted over 60% for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and in which 48% of voters strongly disapprove of Donald Trump, you\u2019d think our Republican Governor would face a steep climb to reelection. In an interview with Mother Jones early this year, Jealous claimed \u201cDonald Trump will take care of Larry Hogan.\u201d … Continue reading Why is Ben Jealous Losing? One Reason: Money<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2020,138],"tags":[1977,968],"class_list":["post-11656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-governors-race","category-campaign-finance","tag-ben-jealous","tag-larry-hogan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-320","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11656"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11660,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11656\/revisions\/11660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}