New lawmakers must raise cash for 2012 while paying off debt

Several newly-elected lawmakers are facing double the
fundraising pressure – preparing for the 2012 election and paying off the 2010
campaign debt.

Well over a dozen incoming freshmen Republicans have
fundraisers scheduled during the next month to help retire debt from their 2010
campaigns, according to the Sunlight Foundation, which tracks and posts the
invites on the website politicalpartytime.org.

With the GOP gaining at least 62 seats this fall, there will
be plenty of targets for Democrats to choose from in 2012, which means new
members are already thinking about their reelection bids. Step one is retiring
that pesky campaign debt. 

Several new members took some time out of this past week’s
orientation events for fundraisers at the Capitol Hill Club and other spots
around town.

On Wednesday, Reps.-elect Dan Benishek (R-Mich.) and Bill
Flores (R-Texas) held “debt retirement receptions” on Capitol Hill,
with National Republican Campaign Committee Chairman Pete Sessions making an appearance
at the fundraiser for his fellow Texan Flores.

Sessions also attended a debt retirement fundraiser for
Rep.-elect Quico Canseco (R-Texas) Thursday.

On Friday, Reps.-elect Dennis Ross (R-Fla.), Adam Kinzinger
(R-Ill.) and Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) had fundraising events scheduled to help
pay down their campaign debt.

Campaigns don’t file their post-general finance reports to
the Federal Election Commission until next week, but several candidates who
held fundraisers this week reported sizable amounts of campaign debt in their
most recent FEC report, filed in mid-October.

Canseco’s October report showed $1.1 million in campaign
debt, more than half a million of that came in the form of loans. Flores
reported $825,000 in debt in October and Benishek reported $133,000.

According to the invites for the various events, the price
points for donors ranged anywhere from $500-$5,000.

For some candidates, all of the debt was accumulated in the
campaign’s final weeks. Gibson, Ross and Kinzinger didn’t report any debt in
their October filings. 

Democratic fundraising consultant Phil Molfese said for
candidates looking to retire debt, quickly re-soliciting donors who were loyal
during the campaign for “thank you” events is typically the first
move.

“These folks are going to be that more invested now
because you’ve won and so now you’ve arrived,” he said. 

Other prime targets include issue-oriented donors, business
interests or lobbyists who gave to the opposition during the general
election.  

For candidates on the losing end, retiring debt proves a
significantly tougher task and there are plenty of candidates who have already
started their efforts to climb out from under it. It’s also a much harder ask,
said Molfese.

“It’s not really a rational contribution on the part of
the donor,” he said. “So it’s hard for the candidate to even make
those calls.”

Kentucky Democrat Jack Conway, who lost one of the nastiest
Senate races in the nation to Republican Rand Paul, appealed to his supporters
to help pay down his campaign debt in an email Thursday.

“I need your help once again before we all turn our
attention away from politics for a while and toward the holiday season where
time with friends and family becomes our focus,” Conway wrote in the
email. “Over the last frenetic week of our campaign, we were forced to
spend a little more money than we raised. As a result, we owe debt to some of
the folks who truly helped us, like the people that cut our radio ads and
printed fliers for our Get Out The Vote efforts.”

Conway reported more than $460,000 in debt in his final FEC
filing before the election.  

North Carolina Republican Illario Pantano, who lost to Rep.
Mike McIntyre (D) earlier this month, also penned an email to supporters asking
for help paying down his campaign debt, using the DCCC as a foil.

“The bottom line is not pretty, but it’s simple: my
opponent did not win because he had better ideas and principles; he won because
he had more money to spend from the liberal special interest groups and years
of stockpiling campaign contributions,” Pantano wrote. “He also
pleaded for and was granted unprecedented sums from Nancy Pelosi and
the[Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee].” 

The good news is that candidates can carry the debt for as long
they want, according to the FEC, which many do assuming its money owed to
either themselves or close friends and associates. When it comes to thousands
of dollars in cash owed to vendors, those vendors are likely to come knocking
quickly.

So far there haven’t been any out-of-the-box attempts to
score cash to pay off accrued campaign debt. Recall former President Bill
Clinton’s self-raffle to raise money to pay off Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign
debt. The former president asked supporters to purchase raffle tickets for
“the chance to come up to New York and spend the day with me.”