Money flowing into the race
Private donors, PACs put millions into U.S. Senate bids
between Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy is outpacing Florida’s past congressional elections.
With control of the U.S. Senate at stake, the money pouring into the race between incumbent Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy is outpacing Florida’s past congressional elections.
Rubio’s campaign had raised about $20 million and Murphy’s campaign $11 million through Sept. 30, according to recent filings to the Federal Election Commission.
For Rubio, that’s already more than the $17.2 million he raised in his initial run for Senate in 2010, according to the commission. And it’s also more than the nearly $17 million Sen. Bill Nelson raised in his 2012 re-election race, according to federal records.
The money keeps flowing into this year’s race because both Republicans and Democrats think winning Florida’s seat can help them win control of the Senate, said David Keating, president of the Center for Competitive Politics.
“Florida is probably one of the biggest competitive states. There are a lot of media markets all over the state. It costs a lot money to run in Florida,” said Keating, whose organization advocates for easing limits on campaign spending.
Murphy and Rubio will meet for a second debate at 7 p.m. tonight at Broward College in Davie.
The influx of money into the Senate race is paying for dueling TV ads, campaign mailers, social media campaigns and other outreach efforts aimed at reaching voters from the Panhandle to the Keys.
With polls showing the race tightening, how much of that advertising push and get-outthe-vote effort the two campaigns can afford to continue could determine who wins on Nov. 8.
“If a campaign wants a saturation advertising campaign across all of the Florida media markets, they need to plan to spend millions,” said Kevin Wagner, a political science professor at Florida Atlantic University. “Campaigns also want to spend on grass-roots campaigning such as door knocking.”
Rubio’s late re-election start — filing just before the June deadline, months after dropping his presidential bid — hasn’t
kept the Republican from taking the fundraising lead over Murphy, a twoterm Democratic congressman from Jupiter.
After campaign spending through Sept. 30, Rubio’s campaign had $5.5 million in cash on hand, compared with about $2.8 million for Murphy, according to the Federal Election Commission.
“Marco’s late entrance meant we had to set up a campaign and raise funds much more quickly than normal,” Rubio’s press secretary Olivia Perez-Cubas said. “But thanks to thousands of supporters, we’ve been able to quickly raise the resources we need to run a competitive campaign and feel very good where we are at as we enter the final stretch.”
Some of Rubio’s top contributors through September include Goldman Sachs ($79,800), the hedge fund Elliot Management ($72,900) and sugar producer Fanjul Corp. ($72,660), according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group tracking campaign finances.
Some of Murphy’s biggest contributors through September included the pro-Israel group JStreetPAC ($72,898), the Orlando law firm Morgan & Morgan ($72,400) and his father’s company Coastal Construction Group ($66,967), according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Besides their own fundraising, Rubio and Murphy are both getting big campaign spending boosts from political action committees overseen by supporters who don’t face the same fundraising limits as the candidates.
For example, the Senate Leadership Fund (which backs Republican Senate candidates) has spent $1.5 million and the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action has spent $1.3 million to help Rubio try to beat Murphy, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Likewise the Senate Majority PAC (which backs Democratic Senate candidates) has spent $1 million trying to help Murphy get elected, along with about $289,000 spent by the Immigrant Voters Win PAC and $207,000 spent by the Service Employees International Union Committee on Political Education, according to the Federal Election Commission.