The House Democrats’ campaign arm raised more than $12 million last month, topping its Republican counterpart and giving the group its best April on record in terms of fundraising.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) pulled in $12.2 million in April and wiped out its remaining $5.5 million in debt from last cycle, according to figures shared first with The Hill. The DCCC ended the month with $32.1 million in the bank, nearly tripling the cash on hand it carried at this point in 2019.
By comparison, the House GOP’s campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), announced on Thursday that it had raised $11.2 million in April, an impressive haul and the group’s best off-year April, but one that still falls about $1 million short of the DCCC’s.
The NRCC still has slightly more money in the bank than the DCCC — about $34 million — and it entered 2021 without any notable debt, unlike its Democratic counterpart.
The massive April hauls underscore how fundraising is not slowing down in the wake of the 2020 elections, even in a year without any regularly scheduled federal elections.
Both parties have reason to stay motivated. Democrats currently hold one of the narrowest majorities in the House in decades, and Republicans will likely need to flip only about a half-dozen seats next year to recapture control of the lower chamber.
What’s more, history tends to work against the president’s party in such midterms. In 2018, for instance, Democrats gained a net 41 seats in the House, recapturing the majority after a vote that was largely seen as a referendum on former President Trump’s first years in office.
In 2022, however, Democrats are hoping to buck historical trends, betting that voters will reward them at the polls for their ambitious legislative agenda, which includes the sweeping $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill signed into law earlier this year.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the DCCC, attributed his group’s fundraising success last month to Democrats’ COVID-19 relief efforts.
“Democrats have been clear in our priorities: We’re focused on delivering significant relief to Americans so we can crush the COVID-19 pandemic,” Maloney said in a statement. “With Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi’s [D-Calif.] leadership, Democrats in Congress put cash in millions of pockets and got vaccines into millions of arms. While Republicans continue to fight one another over conspiracies and lies, the American people recognize that Democrats are fighting for them.”