Below is our final SSP Cash Power Index chart for the quarter, which looks at Senate races (both open seats and those with incumbents running for re-election). Our 1Q cash power chart is here, and our 2Q chart is here.
Once again, the same caveats apply: Many campaigns made final spending decisions before the filing deadline, so cash-on-hand figures may look artificially "low" in some cases. In other words, just looking at the final Cash Power Rankings often won't give you a complete picture of where things stand. That's why it's important to consult our 3Q Senate fundraising chart in concert with this listing. Third-party expenditures are also, of course, important indicators of a race's competitiveness.
Note that Jim Gilmore has refused to release his fundraising totals to the media (and his FEC reports are not online yet), hence our resort to mathematical symbols. But we're pretty confident Mark Warner will retain the number one slot regardless, as he has all year.
The chart below (a companion to this one) shows the SSP Cash Power Index for open House seats. (Our 2Q chart is here.) The same caveats apply:
Many campaigns made final spending decisions before the filing deadline, so cash-on-hand figures may look artificially "low" in some cases. In other words, just looking at the final Cash Power Rankings often won't give you a complete picture of where things stand. That's why it's important to consult our 3Q House fundraising chart in concert with this listing.
This list also does not take into account third-party independent expenditures (you can find that information here) or 527 "electioneering" expenditures (available here), which are another important measure of a race's competitiveness.
Note: Gary Trauner and Paul Carmouche are listed with multiple prior rankings due to multi-way GOP primaries.
P.S. I think you can see why we moved NY-13 to Safe D, huh?
Cash Power Rank
2Q Rank
District
Challenger
Party
CoH
Defender
Party
CoH
Cash Power Index
1
1
NY-13
McMahon
D
$483
Straniere
R
$2
24,150%
2
10/15/16
LA-04
Carmouche
D
$145
Fleming
R
$5
2,900%
3
*
MO-09
Baker
D
$326
Luetkemeyer
R
$43
758%
4
6
CA-04
Brown
D
$457
McClintock
R
$94
486%
5
4
NJ-03
Adler
D
$1,276
Myers
R
$288
443%
6
5
NY-25
Maffei
D
$599
Sweetland
R
$137
437%
7
10/15/16
LA-04
Carmouche
D
$145
Gorman
R
$36
403%
8
12
OH-16
Boccieri
D
$464
Schuring
R
$128
363%
9
3/8
WY-AL
Trauner
D
$596
Lummis
R
$202
295%
10
9
AZ-01
Kirkpatrick
D
$306
Hay
R
$124
247%
11
2
NJ-07
Stender
D
$602
Lance
R
$258
233%
12
27
AL-05
Parker
R
$255
Griffith
D
$127
201%
13
13
IL-11
Halvorson
D
$275
Ozinga
R
$176
156%
14
14
OH-15
Kilroy
D
$570
Stivers
R
$570
100%
15
20
MN-03
Madia
D
$995
Paulsen
R
$1,101
90%
16
26
VA-11
Connolly
D
$646
Fimian
R
$719
90%
17
24
OH-07
Neuhardt
D
$215
Austria
R
$280
77%
18
18
MD-01
Kratovil
D
$518
Harris
R
$749
69%
19
-
NJ-07
Hsing
I
$133
Lance
R
$258
52%
20
21
NM-01
Heinrich
D
$328
White
R
$678
48%
21
23
NY-26
Kryzan
D
$115
Lee
R
$327
35%
22
29
KY-02
Boswell
D
$232
Guthrie
R
$680
34%
23
19
NM-02
Teague
D
$147
Tinsley
R
$456
32%
24
7
AL-02
Bright
D
$66
Love
R
$307
21%
25
11
OR-05
Erickson
R
$42
Schrader
D
$233
18%
26
25
CA-52
Lumpkin
D
$37
Hunter
R
$322
11%
27
22
IL-18
Callahan
D
$53
Schock
R
$466
11%
28
28
PA-05
McCracken
D
$8
Thompson
R
$132
6%
* We did not include MO-09 in our 2Q chart because of large primaries on both sides. Had we included Baker-Leutkemeyer with their CoH at the time, Baker would have ranked 17th at 99%.
Once again, we are proud to present the SSP Cash Power Index - a metric designed to measure cash-on-hand competitiveness. We divide a challenger's cash-on-hand by the size of the incumbent's war chest to gauge the financial gap between candidates.
There's one very important caveat with this list, which makes it different from those we published after the first and second quarters: Many campaigns made final spending decisions before the filing deadline, so cash-on-hand figures may look artificially "low" in some cases. In other words, just looking at the final Cash Power Rankings often won't give you a complete picture of where things stand. That's why it's important to consult our 3Q House fundraising chart in concert with this listing.
This list also does not take into account third-party independent expenditures (you can find that information here) or 527 "electioneering" expenditures (available here), which are another important measure of a race's competitiveness. We also plan to release indices for open seats and for Senate races shortly.
In our series of SSP Cash Power Rankings, we previously looked at House challengers running against incumbents and the most competitive Senate races. Now it's time to close the triangle and look at the cash-on-hand competitiveness of candidates running in open seat House races.
The one race that we've left out is MO-09. Due to a large primary field without a clear front-runner on both sides, that race would be difficult to place on our chart. In other races with undecided primaries, we've either included multiple candidates (e.g. WY-AL, NY-26, LA-04), or have decided to go with the clear front-runner only. The top-ranked race here is a special case, as Jamshad Wyne is the only GOP candidate to file a fundraising report in NY-13 so far -- we don't consider him to be the front-runner of anything (except for the loser's sweepstakes, perhaps), but he was our only choice.
Just as we did for the House race scene (and as we did last quarter), we present our rankings according to the SSP Cash Power Index for competitive senate races. The main difference is that we include open seats in this chart; where there is no incumbent senator, the incumbent party candidate is used as a stand-in.
Note that the number of races on this list is a lot smaller than last time; that's because some folks have lost primaries, and also because we've left off the races which, at this point, are not competitive. So while it might look like Rick Noriega, say, has jumped a bunch, that's at least in part because the likes of Greg Fischer and Tony Raimondo aren't around anymore. Also, Tom Udall was previously ranked twice because he faced two primary opponents at the time.
UPDATE: Chart updated to reflect inclusion of KS-Sen.
It's time. Just as we did after the first quarter, we've rounded up and ranked the top 75 non-open seat House races according to the SSP Cash Power Index -- a metric designed to measure cash-on-hand competitiveness. We divide a challenger's cash-on-hand by the size of the incumbent's war chest to gauge the financial gap between candidates.
Let's have a look at where we stand after the second quarter. You'll notice that eight of the top ten challengers are Democrats, and the top-ranked Republican is Deborah "The Defrauder" Honeycutt. 47 of the top 75 challengers are Democrats while 27 are Republicans. A lone independent makes the chart for the first time:
Just as we did yesterday for the House race scene, SSP has ranked the Senate races this year in terms of their cash-on-hand competitiveness. This measure reflects the ratio of the challenger's cash-on-hand to that of the incumbent. The only difference is that this time, in the interest of comprehensiveness, we've included several candidates who are defending open seats currently held by their party (marked in italics) and slotted them in the incumbent column -- because, hey, we had to stick 'em somewhere. So without further ado:
Rank
State
Candidate
Party
CoH
Incumbent*
Party
CoH
Rating
1
VA
Mark Warner
D
4,384,294
Jim Gilmore
R
208,133
2106%
2
NM
Tom Udall
D
2,582,990
Steve Pearce
R
855,203
302%
3
NM
Tom Udall
D
2,582,990
Heather Wilson
R
1,196,053
216%
4
CO
Mark Udall
D
4,236,533
Bob Schaffer
R
2,160,863
196%
5
ME
Tom Allen
D
2,687,701
Susan Collins
R
4,511,493
60%
6
MN
Al Franken
D
3,491,480
Norm Coleman
R
6,960,913
50%
7
NJ
Rob Andrews
D
2,232,312
Frank Lautenberg
D
4,702,249
47%
8
NH
Jeanne Shaheen
D
1,837,539
John Sununu
R
4,313,762
43%
9
LA
John Kennedy
R
1,623,391
Mary Landrieu
D
4,564,082
36%
10
ID
Larry LaRocco
D
253,707
Jim Risch
R
935,876
27%
11
OK
Andrew Rice
D
597,478
Jim Inhofe
R
2,221,848
27%
12
NE
Scott Kleeb
D
281,095
Mike Johanns
R
1,335,390
21%
13
AK
Mark Begich
D
204,207
Ted Stevens
R
1,318,722
15%
14
IL
Steve Sauerberg
R
1,074,982
Richard Durbin
D
7,567,277
14%
15
MS-B
Ronnie Musgrove
D
337,249
Roger Wicker
R
2,765,229
12%
16
KY
Greg Fischer
D
854,557
Mitch McConnell
R
7,741,422
11%
17
NE
Tony Raimondo
D
140,720
Mike Johanns
R
1,335,390
11%
18
NC
Kay Hagan
D
312,000
Elizabeth Dole
R
3,200,000
10%
19
KS
Jim Slattery
D
286,125
Pat Roberts
R
2,986,794
10%
20
OR
Jeff Merkley
D
473,833
Gordon Smith
R
5,149,251
9%
21
GA
Jim Martin
D
333,132
Saxby Chambliss
R
3,637,392
9%
22
KY
Bruce Lunsford
D
666,373
Mitch McConnell
R
7,741,422
9%
23
TN
Bob Tuke
D
217,093
Lamar Alexander
R
2,874,512
8%
24
SC
Buddy Witherspoon
R
257,911
Lindsey Graham
R
4,777,019
5%
25
OR
Steve Novick
D
197,007
Gordon Smith
R
5,149,251
4%
26
TX
Rick Noriega
D
329,294
John Cornyn
R
8,688,954
4%
27
WY-B
Nick Carter
D
26,743
John Barrasso
R
1,139,381
2%
28
MA
Jim Ogonowski
R
186,929
John Kerry
D
9,323,486
2%
29
AL
Vivian Figures
D
44,628
Jeff Sessions
R
4,033,195
1%
30
SD
Joel Dykstra
R
20,393
Tim Johnson
D
2,523,586
1%
31
MT
Kirk Bushman
R
8,097
Max Baucus
D
6,394,024
0%
32
SD
Sam Kephart
R
2,107
Tim Johnson
D
2,523,586
0%
33
MT
Michael Lange
R
1,976
Max Baucus
D
6,394,024
0%
A few notes:
There are several incumbent Senators who have either not drawn challengers, or their opponents have not filed FEC reports: Biden (DE), Cochran (MS-A), Enzi (WY), Harkin (IA), Levin (MI), Pryor (AR), Reed (RI), and Rockefeller (WV).
Back in 2006, DavidNYC posted a chart tracking the top 50 House challengers in terms of their cash-on-hand competitiveness. In other words, he divided challenger CoH by incumbent CoH to arrive at a "competitiveness" percentage for each race. It's a useful measure because, as David said at the time:
If you've got $500K, that's all well-and-good - but your opponent has $2M, then you've got a lot of ground to make up.
So let's take a look at the top 75 non-open seat House races this cycle in terms of each challenger's cash-on-hand competitiveness, listed on the far right. You'll notice that of the top ten challengers, eight of them are Democrats. Only 26 of the top 75 challengers are Republicans.