Opinion: Now come number$ on Congressional fundraising

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New figures just released by the Federal Election Commission show that, despite stiff fundraising competition from the numerous presidential campaigns, candidates for next year’s U.S. House and Senate races raked in nearly a quarter of a billion dollars just in the first 181 days of this year.

Democrats running for both houses did noticeably better than Republicans in their fundraising. Candidates running for the 33 Senate seats up for election reported raising $80.6 million through June 30 -- $47.6 million by Democrats and $33 million by Republicans.

Candidates for all House seats reported raising $157.8 million -- $94.2 million by Democrats and $63.6 million by Republicans. The top-raising House member, you may not be surprised to learn, was Charles Rangel of New York, who took in $2,089,597. Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House majority leader, was second at $1.5 million, about $200,000 more than his boss, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who came in fifth at $1.29 million.

That makes a total raised just for Congress so far of nearly $239 million. And it’s still about 15 months from election day.

In 2001, when these same 33 Senate seats were last elected, 56 candidates raised $43 million during the first six months of the year before the election.

This year contributions from individuals to Senate candidates totaled ...

$45.7 million, or 57%. Political action committees donated $17.9 million, or 22%. The remaining amount came from miscellaneous sources such as candidates’ own donations and investment income.

For the House, 427 incumbents reported receipts of $135.5 million, a $22.3-million or 16% increase over 2005. Individuals gave $65.1 million to House incumbents, while PACs gave $65.6 million. The 228 Democratic incumbents took in $80.3 million, while 199 incumbent Republicans got $55.2 million.

Democratic House members ended the reporting period with $122.4 million in cash on hand while GOP members had $94.4 million. Senate candidates reached June 30 with a total of $106.8 million in cash on hand and debts of $6.4 million, some left over from previous campaigns.

The FEC has further financial breakdowns for freshmen, nonincumbents and others on its website.

-- Andrew Malcolm