LuAnn Bennett’s Shocking FEC Report

Virginia’s 10th Congressional district, on paper, remains one of the most competitive races in Virginia, if you buy the conventional wisdom.

Don’t buy it.

If you’re not willing to take my word for it, take a look at the latest FEC report that was just issued yesterday, October 15th, for the period between July 1 and September 30th of this year.

LuAnn Bennett is broke.

Yes, you read that correctly – a candidate who has raised almost $2 million (and put hundreds of thousands of dollars of her own money into that figure) has $90,024.45 cash-on-hand.

Let’s take a closer look at that.

$90,000 in a competitive Congressional race.  And of that $90,000, the committee owes debts of $70,000.  Meaning, if they decide to actually pay LuAnn back the $70,000 she loaned the campaign, they have a total of $20,000 – less than I raised in three months in my last campaign for a local office – heading into October.  For this whole period, Bennett only raised $627,000 (including the $70k loan).

Barbara Comstock, on the other hand, has over $1.9 million cash-on-hand and raised $1.1 million during the same time period.

Bennett is trailing John Foust’s fundraising over the comparable period last election cycle.  During the July – September quarter, Foust raised $850,000 then added $150,000 of his own money to raise over $1 million in the same period.  She barely did better than half Foust’s haul in the same period.

Where did the money go?  Well, if you live in Northern Virginia, you’ve seen LuAnn Bennett’s “pay equity” commercial a couple of hundred times.  Bennett’s campaign spent over $1 million on media buys ($1,131,238.17, to be exact).  This, coupled with DCCC ad buys have ensured a constant barrage of anti-Comstock messages on the airwaves, although most of those efforts have been laughable.  The DCCC ad has Barbara on Hardball stating she’s in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade – about as doctrinaire conservative a position you can take, and not at all out of the mainstream of the GOP – and comparing it with Donald Trump’s absurd statement that we need to “punish” women who have abortions, as if that’s what she said.  It’s almost a total non-sequitur, but they’re spending a lot of money on it.

The ad buys were necessary to increase Bennett’s name ID across a district she’s barely visited over the last ten years and has been neglecting on the ground during this time period.  While there are multiple small dollar ($500 and less) disbursements to named people – probably paid canvassers – on her report, she herself has been absent from dozens of community events that the Comstock campaign has covered.

The only way to make up for a lack of fundraising is through grassroots and your ground game GOTV efforts – Bennett does not seem to be doing that.

At the same time, the DCCC pulled yet another of its famous September/October routines and put out a poll that purports to put Bennett in the lead, within the margin of error.  Last month they had a poll from the same pollster that put Bennett only a few steps behind Comstock, and this month they put one out that puts her in the lead.  This, of course, has caused some folks in the 10th District to wet their pants that maybe Barbara is in trouble.

She isn’t.  Remember that the House Democrats had a poll with John Foust within 2 points of Comstock in 2014, and she beat him by 16% on Election Day.

Bennett is out of money, and will be totally reliant on the DCCC to fund her media buys over the rest of the campaign.  At the same time, she’s got no money for mail, GOTV, an AB program (although that will likely be handled by the Clinton campaign) or anything else.  She’s counting almost completely on the Clinton campaign to get her across the finish line.

Having the Obama campaign to handle on-the-ground didn’t help Kristen Cabral in 2012 when she ran against Frank Wolf.  It didn’t help Judy Feder against Wolf in 2008, either, when Obama beat John McCain in the district.

The reality is this – Bennett blew her entire war chest on ads of dubious quality in an attempt to raise her name ID in the district.  She faces a well funded, popular incumbent who is taking nothing for granted and working like she’s ten points behind, as she always does.

For my friends and colleagues across the 10th, my advice is simple:

Chill. Barbara’s got this.