Spending $1M+ for a $14K job: Big money flows, obscured by complexity, in NC legislative races
North Carolina’s state legislative races are once again big-money affairs, with multiple campaigns spending more than $1 million to win part-time, $14,000-a-year jobs.
Republicans are pushing for a supermajority that would let them fully control the state’s budget-writing process and legislative agenda without worrying about Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto power. Democrats are working hard to block the GOP, particularly in a handful of closely divided districts that are likely to decide the matter.
As it often does, money flowed from out of state to fuel the fight. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg dropped $1 million into state Democratic Party coffers in the past two weeks. National Republican groups, funded by a range of corporate interests, bankrolled much of the GOP effort.
Oftentimes money flows through several committees before it funds campaign mailers and attack ads, making donors more difficult to identify and total spending figures harder to nail down.
Party operatives say the spending is roughly in line with the past few cycles of state legislative races, after you account for rising advertising costs. House Republicans had a banner year raising money though, according to House GOP Caucus Director Stephen Wiley.
“Our spending this cycle dwarfs anything we have ever done,” he said. “And I still wish I had another million dollars and an extra week.”
Wiley said he hasn’t seen any House campaigns spend $1 million yet, though several are close. In the state Senate, where districts are larger, at least three Republican campaigns will cost at least $1 million, GOP Caucus Director Dylan Watts said. Democratic strategist Morgan Jackson said he expects at least four million-dollar Senate campaigns on his side.
There are two Wake County races on the list, and they’re crucial in the supermajority fight: Senate District 17, pitting Democratic Sen. Sydney Batch against Republican Mark Cavaliero, and District 18, where Democrat Mary Wills Bode and Republican E.C. Sykes are fighting over an open seat. Together, Republicans and Democrats will probably spend more than $4 million on the Batch-Cavaliero race, Jackson said.
The fight for Wilmington’s Senate District 7 is also notable. Republican Sen. Michael Lee is trying to stave off Democrat Marcia Morgan in one of North Carolina’s swingiest districts. Television time is much less expensive in Wilmington than in Raleigh, but the total time purchased for ads there outstrips anything else in the state.
Jackson said it’s roughly double the TV time Cooper bought in the Wilmington area during the 2020 governor’s race.
Money pooled, races targeted
Based on the flow of money, the state Senate is the primary battleground.
At least seven state Senate candidates raised more than $1 million in the past four months, according to quarterly campaign reports that were due Tuesday and cover fundraising from July 1 to Oct. 22.
That’s in addition to outside spending from groups not directly tied to the candidates but advertising to get them elected. And the money is still coming. After Oct. 22, any donation of at least $1,000 must be reported within 48 hours. As of Friday, the State Board of Elections had received more than 450 of these 48-hour reports.
Much of this money flows through the state Republican and Democratic parties, and the parties target key races. The state parties, and a handful of so-called affiliated committees can accept unlimited donations, then either donate that money to candidate campaigns or spend the money on the candidate’s behalf.
That gets around a donation cap for individual candidate campaigns, which can only accept up to $5,600 per person, per election. By law, that cap increases every two years based on inflation.
Here’s an example: In Wake County, Bode raised $1.7 million over the past four months, but $1.3 million of that came from the state Democratic Party. Sykes, her GOP opponent, raised nearly $1.2 million, but more than $900,000 came from N.C. Senate Majority Fund, an affiliated committee that spends to elect Republicans in the state Senate.
The Senate Majority Fund’s money comes primarily from individual state senate campaigns, led by Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger’s fundraising operation. The fund also got a $125,000 donation from Ronald Cameron, a longtime Republican donor who owns Mountaire, one of the country’s largest poultry businesses.
The state Republican Party’s money came largely from transfers from Speaker of the House Tim Moore’s campaign committee over the past four months. It also got infusions from the Washington and California state Republican parties and another $125,000 check from Cameron.
The Democratic Party, in turn, got much of its money this quarter from Cooper for North Carolina, the governor’s fundraising vehicle, which has built up a war chest the term-limited governor uses to help other Democrats. Cooper’s largest donor the last two years has been an entity called the N.C. Democratic Leadership Committee, an affiliated committee that, like the state parties, accepts unlimited donations.
The group was created to fund Democratic campaigns for Council of State, statewide offices such as governor and attorney general, but Cooper is using it to boost Democrats in the legislature and protect his veto, thus protecting his legislative agenda.
The leadership committee is primarily funded by well known Democratic donors who also give to the state party, and many of their names also appear on the party’s donor rolls from the last four months.
Virginia Sall, a longtime party donor; Tim Sullivan, the former chief executive of Match.com; Jane Sullivan; John Mack, the retired chief executive of Morgan Stanley; Christy Mack; and George Soros, a well-known billionaire donor to Democratic causes who is often vilified by Republicans, all gave at least $250,000 in the past few months.
Layers complicate transparency
Other money flows in through multiple tiers, making it more difficult to track the ultimate donors.
For example: Stop Liberal Judges is a new group focused on judicial races. Citizens for a Better NC House works to elect Republicans to the North Carolina House. The Voter Education Network, registered to a cousin of Tim Moore, the speaker of the state House, recently mailed get-out-the-vote fliers that led the State Board of Elections to put out a press release calling them “misleading.”
All these groups were funded by another group: Citizens for a Better North Carolina, which was one of the state’s biggest fundraisers this quarter, taking in at least $6.4 million. That money came primarily from a Virginia-based entity called the Good Government Coalition, a 527 group under U.S. tax law, which was also active in North Carolina in 2020. Its funders are listed on forms filed with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, and they include GOPAC and the Republican State Leadership Committee.
Those are also 527 entities, with GOPAC funded by a wide range of corporations and industry groups, according to its IRS filings. The Republican State Leadership Committee, which focuses on legislative races around the country, raises money through a number of avenues, including a robust small-dollar online donation operation, its filings show.
NC companies give millions
North Carolina companies also give generously to state legislative candidates through their political action committees.
An analysis by Carolina Forward, a progressive 501c4 group, identified Truist Bank as the top donor through its PAC, distributing $487,000 to lawmaker's campaigns this election cycle. About 57% went to Republicans, the rest to Democrats.
Other major corporate PACs favored the Republican majority more heavily. Duke Energy’s political action committee doled out $445,700, according to the analysis, with 72% benefiting Republicans.
The NC Realtors PAC was one of the top industry donors with $439,200 spent on legislative races this cycle, with 70% going to Republicans.
The North Carolina Farm Bureau, the state’s auto dealers, the state’s beer and wine wholesalers and a PAC for nursing home companies all gave at least $238,000 as well, with the lion’s share going to Republicans, Carolina Forward reported. PACs representing the state’s home builders and road construction industry also gave six figures.
PACs for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina and State Farm also ranked high on the list.
