HI/MI/MO/VA/WA FEC Roundup

Hi all - I owe you an FEC roundup this week, covering the August 4 and August 8 primaries. As a reminder, after the paywall goes into effect (August 9!), these will be available to the second and third subscription tiers. Questions? Comments? Corrections? Tips? Love letters? Hate mail? Hit me up at primaryschool.hello@gmail.com.

This report only covers a brief period from July 1 to July 15 (or July 19, for HI-01.) However, even in that brief window, there are things we can learn from the fundraising performance and spending decisions of campaigns in the final weeks of the August 4 and August 8 primaries. A few bits jumped out at me, in no particular order:

WA-03 Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez should be stockpiling money for November in her light-red Southwest Washington district, and the fact that she’s spending like mad instead tells me she’s more worried than she’s letting on about getting boxed out by underfunded progressive challenger Brent Hennrich. Honolulu Rep. Ed Case once again let himself get outraised, and he also nearly let state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole achieve spending parity—a wild choice considering how much more money Case has left to spend. And finally, progressives have the fundraising momentum in Michigan, particularly in the Senate race but also in MI-07, as late surges of cash for Will Lawrence (MI-07) and Abdul El-Sayed (MI-Sen) allow them to close the gaps with their opponents in cash on hand while also keeping up a good pace of spending. (You’ll notice El-Sayed actually outspent Rep. Haley Stevens directly, and by nearly a million dollars; the flood of dark money for Stevens from AIPAC and other, more mysterious PACs is doing a good job of covering up the fact that El-Sayed is a much stronger fundraiser than Stevens, something that you’d think would factor into DSCC decisionmaki—ahahaha, jk, of course they hate the Arab Muslim progressive.)

Now for the race-by-race analysis.

HI-01: Ed Case isn’t spending so little that I could fairly describe him as having been caught napping by Jarrett Keohokalole, but…let’s just say that if I was advising the Honolulu congressman, I’d be telling him to take this primary more seriously (and more expensively.)

MI-Sen: I mean, holy shit, man, Abdul El-Sayed is a fundraising machine. $2.3 million in two weeks is a crazy pace. After trailing Stevens in cash on hand for the entire race (thanks in no small part part to Stevens's large balance in her House campaign account, which Stevens was able to transfer directly to her Senate campaign), El-Sayed is nearing parity in the home stretch thanks to his own incredible talent as a fundraiser.

MI-07: Centrists Matt Maasdam and Bridget Brink are taking different approaches to the final stretch: Brink, who is better-resourced to begin with, is spending heavily in the hopes of ensuring she comes out ahead, while Maasdam, who has benefited from far more in outside spending, is conserving more of his cash for November. Progressive Will Lawrence, like Brink, is spending like he doesn't think the primary is a done deal.

MI-11: Fundraising has just completely dried up for all three opponents of Jeremy Moss, even as engineer Don Ufford spends a last-ditch last-minute burst of his own funds.

MI-12: Byron Nolen seems to be giving up on his primary to Rashida Tlaib for real now.

MI-13: Unlike in Q2, Shri Thanedar did not report any crypto losses in this reporting period, but he did feel worried enough to drop another $1.35 million of his own money into his campaign’s bank account. Justice Democrat/DSA challenger Donavan McKinney’s fundraising is solid but not earth-shattering, but financial parity was never in the picture here thanks to Thanedar’s immense wealth and willingness to self-fund.

MO-01: Yeah, Rep. Wesley Bell is scared of his rematch with Cori Bush—and a little less than half of his money this period came from AIPAC lobbyist bundling. (In Q2, a majority of his money was brought in by AIPAC’s bundling operation.) Bush isn’t fundraising spectacularly, but she’s always been a decidedly mid fundraiser, so this is solid for her.

VA-08: All of Rep. Don Beyer’s challengers failed to launch, and that is especially evident in their pre-primary reports.

WA-03: As mentioned above, MGP seems scared—even though Hennrich is fundraising one step above a protest candidate.

WA-09: Who is giving either of Kshama Sawant or Melissa Chaudhry money? I mean, seriously, why?