Welcome to the Monday, July 25, Brew.
By: David Luchs
Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:
- What amounts to a wave election in the U.S. House?
- Pat Ryan and Marc Molinaro are running in the special election for New York’s 19th Congressional District
- Six major party committees have raised $1.3 billion this cycle
What amounts to a wave election in the U.S. House?
All this week, we will be bringing you a Week of Waves to answer the question—”What is a wave election?”—using election data from 1918 through 2016.
Our Wave Elections report analyzed results in all election cycles from Woodrow Wilson’s (D) second midterm in 1918 to Donald Trump’s (R) victory in 2016. We analyzed four sets of elections: U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governorships, and state legislatures. We define a wave as the top fifth (20%) of elections from 1918-2016 in terms of losses for the incumbent president’s party.
Under this definition, the president’s party must lose 48 seats in the U.S. House for an election to qualify as a wave. There have been 11 wave elections between 1918 and 2016: four for Democrats and seven for Republicans.
The smallest U.S. House waves were in 1966 and 1974, under the presidents Lyndon Johnson (D) and Gerald Ford (R), respectively. The president’s party lost 48 U.S. House seats during these elections. The largest wave was in 1932, under Herbert Hoover (R), when Republicans lost 97 seats.
For comparison, the median number of U.S. House seats the president’s party lost between 1918 and 2016 was six. The average number of seats lost was about 14.
While some have described 2018 as a wave election for House Democrats, Republicans lost 42 seats compared to the number they held after the 2016 elections.
All 435 U.S. House districts are up for election in 2022. Click here to learn more.
Pat Ryan and Marc Molinaro are running in the special election for New York’s 19th Congressional District
Today, we’re highlighting another noteworthy 2022 election: the August 23 special election to fill the seat representing New York’s 19th Congressional District.
Pat Ryan (D) and Marc Molinaro (R) are running. Former incumbent Antonio Delgado (D) resigned after Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) selected him as lieutenant governor. The winner of the special election will serve the rest of Delgado’s term that ends on January 3, 2023.
The special election is one of two elections for New York’s 19th district in 2022. The other is the regularly scheduled election on November 8.
The boundaries of the 19th district changed in 2022 due to redistricting. The special election will be held under the old district lines, while the November election will be held in the newly redrawn district. The old district has a partisan lean of R+4, according to FiveThirtyEight, while the redrawn district has a partisan lean of R+1.
“The current 19th is a swing district, and the special election has outsized national implications, as it will determine the size of the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives for the remainder of the 117th Congress,” said The Times Union’s Timmy Facciola. “The victor will also gain incumbent status before the November midterm elections, for which both Molinaro and Ryan have declared their candidacies in New York’s newly drawn districts,” Facciola added.
Molinaro is running to represent the 19th district in both the special and November general elections. Ryan is running for the 19th district in the special election and for the redrawn 18th district in the November general election.
As of July 16, 2022, 16 special elections have been called during the 117th Congress. From the 113th Congress to the 116th Congress, 50 special elections were held.
Six major party committees have raised $1.3 billion this cycle
Six major party committees raised a combined $1.3 billion in the first eighteen months of the 2022 election cycle. In June, the committees raised a combined $85 million, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission Wednesday. Here’s a closer look at June’s fundraising numbers:
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) raised $12.6 million and spent $11.2 million, while the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) raised $9.5 million and spent $17.0 million. So far in the 2022 election cycle, the NRSC has outraised the DSCC with $173.5 million in receipts to the DSCC’s $162.1 million. At this point in the 2020 election cycle, the NRSC led in cumulative fundraising with $133.6 million to the DSCC’s $125.1 million.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) raised $17.0 million and spent $13.2 million, while the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) raised $16.5 million and spent $5.7 million. The DCCC’s $13.2 million in expenditures is its highest single-month total in the 2022 election cycle. So far in the 2022 election cycle, the DCCC leads in fundraising with $239.5 million to the NRCC’s $215.2 million. At this point in the 2020 cycle, the DCCC had raised $207.8 million, and the NRCC had raised $160.0 million.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) raised $15.3 million and spent $11.4 million, while the Republican National Committee (RNC) raised $14.5 million and spent $18.1 million. So far in the election cycle, the RNC has raised $247.4 million to the DNC’s $222.8 million. At this time in the 2020 election cycle, the RNC led in fundraising by a larger margin, with $409.7 million to the DNC’s $186.2 million.
This election cycle, the three Republican committees have raised 1.8% more than the three Democratic committees ($636.0 million to $624.5 million). The Republican fundraising advantage is down from 2.7% last month.