In Virginia's reliably red 6th District, encompassing the Interstate 81 corridor from Frederick County to Roanoke, Democratic challenger Beth Macy has raised nearly $1.7 million as of currently available data – ahead of Republican incumbent Ben Cline's $1.4 million – and with a very different donor portfolio. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
What do John Grisham and Ross Perot Jr. have in common? They've both donated in the 6th Congressional District race.
While Rep. Ben Cline and candidate Beth Macy have each attracted some household names among their donors, data reported to the Federal Election Commission, or FEC, show stark differences between who's funding their campaigns, and how.
Macy has raised almost a quarter-million dollars more than Cline, which Alex Keena, an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of Political Science, says is somewhat unusual.
ALEX KEENA: Typically, incumbents raise a lot more money than challengers, on average. … When you're in office for a number of years … you've had opportunities to get to know donors. You get seated on committees, where you establish relationships with lobbyists and donors, and they contribute to your war chest.
But, he said, this year is a bit different.
KEENA: There's this nationwide pendulum swing away from Republicans and towards Democrats. … The Democrats feel energized … mobilized against Trump, and the incumbents who are Republicans who have supported Trump.
Macy told WMRA she spends about half of her time fundraising, through events and calling her way through her Rolodex.
BETH MACY: I'm not surprised that I've outraised him. I'm a really hard worker. … I don't stop when I feel that people are being wronged. I've never stopped – as a journalist, as a book writer, I just go, and partly that's because I was raised poor and I've had to work for everything I've ever gotten.
Cline did not respond to calls to his Harrisonburg or D.C. offices, or emails sent to five different staff members, seeking an interview for this story.
One major difference between their campaigns is that Macy has raised $445,000 from people who each gave her less than $200 total – almost 10 times how much Cline collected in this category. Keena said of these small donations –
KEENA: A lot of times, it is about on the ground, grassroots connections, campaigning the hard way, going around making relationships, retail politics. Politicians who invest themselves in those types of campaigns, like the old-fashioned types of campaigns, you tend to see more money – especially in competitive races – from those small donors.
Where Cline outperforms Macy is in contributions from other committees, including corporate PACs. He's brought in about $600,000 from industry and lobbyist groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the major tobacco corporation Altria Group, SpaceX, and Dominion Energy.
I asked Keena about the influence large donors have on politicians.
KEENA: Why would you accept money from someone if you didn't feel that you were ready to support their interests? … We tend to think of politicians as being sort of passive in this, and people just donate and send them money, but the truth is, they're the ones who are going and asking for money. So who you ask is a reflection of whose team you're on.
Macy's committee contributions, totalling about $39,000, have come from the League of Conservation Voters and PACs associated with other Democrats, including Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine. She's pledged to never take corporate PAC money – even if she were to be elected and had more of them interested in donating.
MACY: I've said this numerous times. … This is what's wrong with politics today. We've got to get rid of Citizens United. We've got to get rid of all the corruption that I wrote about in Dopesick, where it becomes possible … for the person at the FDA who approves Oxycontin to then go work for Purdue a couple of years later. … Richard Sackler famously said he could get any legislator on the phone within 24 hours.
She pointed out that Cline has accepted donations from Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Merck, and Amneal Pharmaceuticals. Keena said the refusal of corporate money in Congress –
KEENA: It's rare. You know, we used to think that the Republicans were the party of Wall Street and "Big Business," or at least, that's what the Democrats used to accuse them of, but ever since Citizens United, a court case over a decade ago that sort of opened the floodgates for big money, the Democrats have tried to play that game, and they've really succeeded in finding their own billionaires and their own superPACs to bankroll the party.
Campaigns have to report certain details about people who give them more than $200. For instance, Cline has a sizeable contingent of executives – from business supply magnate Richard Uihlein and Ross Perot Jr., the billionaire real estate developer whose father ran for president in the 90s – to Shenandoah Valley dynasties such as the Holtzmans of Holtzman Oil and the Stoltzfuses of Dynamic Aviation.
Macy's supporters include dozens of educators, healthcare providers, and fellow writers – including big names such as David Baldacci, John Grisham, and Barabara Kingsolver – who all live in Virginia, albeit outside the 6th District.
The healthcare providers include local doctors, nurses, and specialists. Macy said she built a lot of connections in the field when researching the opioid epidemic for her bestselling book Dopesick, which was adapted into a Hulu television series.
MACY: These are people that I've interviewed or who have used my book in their medical school classes. It's become a classic text for training doctors how to recognize addiction and how to treat it.
Another one of Macy's donors? A musician named Donald Henley. WMRA wasn't able to definitively confirm whether this is the Don Henley of the Eagles, who reportedly has a track record of donating to Democrats. The Charlottesville address Henley lists with this donation – and nearly 5,000 other donations reported to the FEC – is that of the Silk Mills Building, home to the Cal Financial Group – which provides "financial management for artists, athletes, high-net worth individuals and their families."
Funding a political campaign – just like life in the fast lane – is about knowing all the right people, and paying heavenly bills.
