Endangered House Members Began 2024 With Campaign Cash Cushions

Vulnerable House lawmakers in both parties are raising money at a strong pace as the outcome of their swing-seat races will be key to determining who controls the chamber next year.

A Bloomberg Government analysis of the latest campaign-finance reports, out overnight, show how seriously swing-seat lawmakers are taking their contests this fall.

The National Republican Congressional Committee put 25 sitting members in its “Patriot” incumbent-protection program, and that group began 2024 with an average of $1.8 million on hand, according to the Federal Election Commission documents.

The 28 House Democrats considered by their party to have the most difficult re-election campaigns were not far behind and had $1.4 million on average in their campaign accounts.

Candidate fundraising and spending will intensify over the next nine months, supplemented by independent expenditures by the House campaign committees and also from super-PACs that can raise money in unlimited amounts.

The first primaries are on March 5 including in California, home to four of the ten best-funded vulnerable Republicans: Michelle Steel ($3 million), Young Kim ($2.5 million), Ken Calvert ($2.5 million), and Mike Garcia ($1.8 million).

Garcia’s likely Democratic opponent, former NASA chief of staff George Whitesides, began the year with more cash ($2.3 million) than the incumbent.

Whitesides this week was included in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s initial slate of 17 candidates in its “Red to Blue” program targeting competitive Republican-held districts.

Calvert, the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Chair from Riverside County, more than doubled his $1 million cash total from the beginning of 2022 after defeating Democrat Will Rollins by fewer than 5 percentage points.

Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, is seeking a rematch and had $2.2 million cash-on-hand compared with $283,000 at this point two years ago. He also made the DCCC’s Red to Blue roster.

The best-funded of the DCCC’s 28 “Frontline” Democrats is Rep. Pat Ryan ($2.21 million), who was the only New York Democrat to win a swing district in an unusually subpar 2022 election year for his state party.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, the only House Democrat first elected in November 2022 from a district President Joe Biden didn’t carry in the 2020 presidential election, had $2.18 million left to spend as she geared up for a potential rematch with Joe Kent, an Army veteran aligned with Donald Trump.

The 25 Republicans in the NRCC’s Patriot program include all 17 from districts that Biden won. The 28 Frontline Democrats include the five from districts Trump carried.