Outside spenders’ return on investment: Capitol Hill edition

by Lindsay Young

investigations

Nov 29, 2012 9:50 am

Few stories that we've done in this space have elicited such a torrent of chatter as the one we posted earlier this month looking at the picture of scale return on investment for the outside groups that poured more than a half billion dollars into the presidential election. Today, we take a look at how they did in congressional races. We'll explain how we did both stories and dive deeper into the data at a webinar that begins at 1 p.m. ET

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Return on investment (ROI) for outside spenders represents the percent of money spent that went toward producing the election results the groups wanted. This could be money spent in support of a candidate who won, or money spent to oppose a candidate who lost. Remember that the vast percentage of money spent by outside groups went for negative campaigning. (See a visualization of the data here.)

Because of the enormous sums spent on the presidential election, we ran some additional calculations to see how groups fared on their congressional bets. Then, we drilled down further to see how they did when it came to races for the House and for the Senate. Since the presidential outcomes are all or nothing, we didn't provide a separate line item for that.

Eight groups' rate of return increased by 50 percent or more. The biggest-spending of those, the Ending Spending Action Fund, plunked down $2.9 million (of its $12.8 million in general election spending) on Senate races. When its unsuccessful big bet on Romney is excluded from the calculation, the group’s rate of return skyrockets from 15 percent overall to 67 percent.

The adjusted percentages for left-leaning groups are not as dramatic. Taking out the presidential money decreased some of the union groups’ percentages by 11 to 17 percentage points. The biggest spender, SEIU PEA-Federal, spent $15.8 in the general election, getting an 85% return on all investments compared to a 68% return on congressional investments.

Potentially significant in light of the negotiations now underway on how to avoid the "fiscal cliff" looming if Congress and the White House can't agree on spending cuts and revenue increases: the success of Americans for Tax Reform, whose founder, Grover Norquist is the godfather of the no-new-taxes-pledge that just about every Republican member of Congress signs. ATR is one of the few conservative outside spending groups that scored a better-than 50 percent ROI; the number rises to 61 percent.

Races that ended in recounts or runoffs are counted toward general election spending but not counted in the win/loss percentage. You can read more about our methodology here or sign up for the webinar where we will be available to answer your questions.

Below are the ROI stats for the top 30 outside spending groups that were active in more than one race in the general election. Scroll to the bottom to see the complete data set.

AMERICAN CROSSROADS

1.29%

Congress ROI : 10.76%

House ROI : 0.00%

Senate ROI : 10.76%

Total spent campaign 2012: $104,710,472

1.29% of $103,559,717 spent in the general election and ending in the desired result.
Supported 0 winning candidates; 0.00% of money went to supporting winning candidates.
Opposed 2 losing candidates; 1.29% of money went to opposing losing candidates.

AMERICAN CROSSROADS

1.29%

Congress ROI : 10.76%

House ROI : 0.00%

Senate ROI : 10.76%

Total spent campaign 2012: $104,710,472

CROSSROADS GRASSROOTS POLICY STRATEGIES

14.40%

Congress ROI : 20.97%

House ROI : 36.63%

Senate ROI : 17.09%

Total spent campaign 2012: $70,709,963

NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE

31.88%

Congress ROI : 31.88%

House ROI : 31.88%

Senate ROI : N/A

Total spent campaign 2012: $64,653,292

DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE

61.43%

Congress ROI : 61.43%

House ROI : 61.43%

Senate ROI : N/A

Total spent campaign 2012: $61,741,050

DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE

79.73%

Congress ROI : 79.73%

House ROI : N/A

Senate ROI : 79.73%

Total spent campaign 2012: $52,105,196

MAJORITY PAC

87.86%

Congress ROI : 87.76%

House ROI : N/A

Senate ROI : 87.76%

Total spent campaign 2012: $37,477,541

US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

6.90%

Congress ROI : 6.90%

House ROI : 21.02%

Senate ROI : 2.06%

Total spent campaign 2012: $32,676,075

NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE

24.05%

Congress ROI : 24.05%

House ROI : N/A

Senate ROI : 24.05%

Total spent campaign 2012: $31,710,841

HOUSE MAJORITY PAC

70.71%

Congress ROI : 70.70%

House ROI : 70.70%

Senate ROI : N/A

Total spent campaign 2012: $30,752,440

AMERICAN FUTURE FUND

5.57%

Congress ROI : 31.10%

House ROI : 0.64%

Senate ROI : 61.29%

Total spent campaign 2012: $23,959,072

FREEDOMWORKS FOR AMERICA

24.59%

Congress ROI : 25.50%

House ROI : 16.13%

Senate ROI : 30.02%

Total spent campaign 2012: $19,234,074

AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM

57.35%

Congress ROI : 57.35%

House ROI : 61.19%

Senate ROI : 21.14%

Total spent campaign 2012: $15,794,582

SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION PEA-FEDERAL

85.37%

Congress ROI : 67.85%

House ROI : 50.28%

Senate ROI : 82.44%

Total spent campaign 2012: $15,202,306

SEIU COPE (SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION COMMITTEE ON POLITICAL EDUCATION)

79.12%