“... out-of-state billionaires playing politics with health care,” a reference to the Koch brothers and their dark money

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$4M in outside money coming to District 13 race
January 30, 2014

Need proof outside money is going to matter in this year’s elections? Just look at spending this week.

Republicans are sending almost $2 million into the special election for Florida’s U.S. House District 13, and Democrats are standing by with almost the same amount. A group backed by conservative billionaire oil heirs David and Charles Koch is running ads nationwide criticizing the federal health care law. And Democrats are trying to fight back against the Koch brothers’ political influence, starting with an ad of their own in a key Senate race in Iowa.

The flurry of spending illustrates the outsized role outside groups are expected to play in the midterm elections. Disclosure of the new spending comes a day before federal candidates have to report how much money they raised and spent on their own last year in the run-up to November’s elections. That’s when voters will determine the balance of power in the House and Senate. Thirty-six governors’ offices also are up for grabs.

Taken as a whole, ad spending so far shows a lopsided contest favoring Republicans and their allies. Americans for Prosperity, one of the Koch brothers’ projects, has spent more on television ads this year in seven states with competitive Senate races than all Democratic groups combined have spent on Senate races in 10 hard-fought states.

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Americans for Prosperity, for instance, already has spent around $6 million to criticize Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina and another $1.7 million to criticize Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. The two are among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats.

This week, the group started airing a weeklong national ad buy on Fox News Channel and CNN criticizing President Barack Obama’s health insurance overhaul and highlighting Americans who saw their health care policies change, despite Obama’s promise that wouldn’t happen. More than $500,000 in airtime has been purchased.

Democrats have countered by trying to make Americans for Prosperity – and their Koch backers – a liability for GOP candidates.

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The Senate Majority PAC ad criticizes “out-of-state billionaires playing politics with health care,” a reference to the Koch brothers. The pair, heirs to an industrial fortune who have spent heavily to back Republican candidates, have become a rallying point for some Democrats who oppose the rise of unlimited outside spending in politics.
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