{"id":6401,"date":"2016-02-25T15:00:39","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T20:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=6401"},"modified":"2016-02-25T14:47:51","modified_gmt":"2016-02-25T19:47:51","slug":"david-trones-historic-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=6401","title":{"rendered":"David Trone’s Historic Spending"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, I am pleased to present the following guest post from Adam Pagnucco:<\/em><\/p>\n

CD8 residents are in the midst of an historic election, not merely because the congressional seat is opening up for the first time in fourteen years.\u00a0 What makes it historic is that one candidate, Total Wine co-owner David Trone, is on pace to shatter spending records in local races.\u00a0 In fact, he may wind up being the top self-funder in a U.S. House race anywhere in the country for all time.<\/p>\n

Since announcing for Congress a month ago, Trone has deluged CD8 residents in mail, digital ads, paid social media, television commercials<\/a> and more.\u00a0 Our sources estimate that Trone has spent roughly $2.5 million on television and radio ads alone through the end of February.\u00a0 (That\u2019s about five times what Kathleen Matthews has spent.)\u00a0 Throw in the cost of mail, digital, staff, vendors and campaign expenses and Trone has probably spent at least $3 million in one month of campaigning.\u00a0 That puts Trone on pace to spend $10 million \u2013 and probably much more \u2013 by the end of the primary.<\/p>\n

How does that stack up against expenditures in other prominent local races?<\/p>\n

We added up spending totals of recent competitive races for Governor, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and Montgomery County Executive contests.\u00a0 For Governor, we included Lieutenant Governor and slate accounts and deducted transfers between them.\u00a0 Primaries and generals are listed separately unless either one was non-competitive, in which case we combine them and list them as \u201cboth.\u201d\u00a0 The data appears below.<\/p>\n

\"Campaign<\/a><\/p>\n

Trone\u2019s spending could eventually be comparable to some gubernatorial races.\u00a0 He probably won\u2019t touch Bob Ehrlich\u2019s total as an incumbent in 2006.\u00a0 But he could approach the totals of Martin O\u2019Malley\u2019s two races and the amount spent by Anthony Brown in the 2014 primary.\u00a0 He will almost certainly exceed what Ben Cardin and Michael Steele spent in their 2006 U.S. Senate race.\u00a0 And he will blow away any candidates in U.S. House and Montgomery County Executive races in recent years.<\/p>\n

Trone\u2019s campaign is almost entirely self-funded.\u00a0 He has said that he will spend \u201cwhatever it takes\u201d<\/a> to win.\u00a0 How will he compare to other self-funders in U.S. House races?\u00a0 The Center for Responsive Politics periodically<\/a> releases<\/a> estimates<\/a> of self-funding<\/a>.\u00a0 Below is a compilation of everyone we can identify who has contributed at least $3 million to their own campaigns, which is roughly the level Trone has so far given to his.<\/p>\n

\"Top<\/a><\/p>\n

Self-funders come from both parties, often run in big states and usually lose.\u00a0 The combined record of the above candidates is 6-18.\u00a0 Phil Maloof, the leading self-funder, should have an asterisk next to his name because he lost both a special election and a general election to future Congresswoman Heather Wilson<\/a> in the same year.\u00a0 (Interestingly, Maloof\u2019s family derived part of its fortune from beer distribution<\/a>.)\u00a0 If Maloof is discounted from the above list, David Trone could well be the top self-funder in a U.S. House race of all time, anywhere.\u00a0 Even including Maloof, Trone could still be number one.<\/p>\n

The Big Question in CD8 is . . . will it work?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, I am pleased to present the following guest post from Adam Pagnucco: CD8 residents are in the midst of an historic election, not merely because the congressional seat is opening up for the first time in fourteen years.\u00a0 What makes it historic is that one candidate, Total Wine co-owner David Trone, is on pace … Continue reading David Trone’s Historic Spending<\/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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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":""},"categories":[1330],"tags":[1545,1778],"class_list":["post-6401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eighth-congressional-district","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-david-trone"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-1Ff","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6401","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=6401"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6405,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6401\/revisions\/6405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}