Outside Congressional Spending in California

There are supposed be to 12 competitive congressional districts. When outside groups come in that means it's a competitive race or the group thinks it'll be competitive if they advertise. That second possibility shouldn't be dismissed and we should never assume that a PAC knows something we don't.

There are a lot more Democratic groups than Republican ones. That fits since the Democrats have been outspending the Republicans. The deluge of dark money the Democrats warned us about hasn't materialized. Unless they were talking about their own dark money.

The first interesting thing to note is that no outside groups have gone into CA-3, 16, and 21. We can assume that no one thinks it's worthwhile to invest. The challengers in these districts aren't regarded as strong as in other districts.

Everybody and their brother is in CA-7. I still believe Lungren is a favorite but others seem to disagree with me. The speculation has been that outside groups would go into where the parties don't. And sure enough, the DCCC isn't in CA-7. Still, you have to wonder if it's overkill. Do the Democrats pick up this district but fail in others due to light spending? A low number of groups, of course, doesn't mean little money. Some of these do have significant spending.

For the most part Republicans don't see a need for much of a defense in CA-36. The Democrats don't see a need to defend CA-9 and have decided to ignore Democratic leaning open seats. These districts do have a lot of Democrats but they are light voters. Considering the Democrats' lack of historical success in Riverside county I'd think they'd put money in CA-41.