This is amazing. While Republican Rep. David Jolly has led in several primary polls, he just announced that he’ll stop personally fundraising for his campaign for Florida’s open Senate seat. Instead, Jolly says he’ll rely on his staff to haul in the dough, and on his new super PAC to run ads for him. Jolly’s arguing that members of Congress need to focus on national security instead of fundraising, going so far as to introduce a stunty piece of legislation that would prohibit members of Congress from personally seeking donations—a bill that would never pass in the first place (and would probably be unconstitutional anyway).
While Jolly’s hoping that he can portray himself as the only candidate in the race who is more focused on the threat of ISIS than he is about winning the Senate race, Jolly’s grandstanding is not likely to be effective—in fact, it’s almost certainly bound to hurt him.
To begin with, it’s hard to see primary voters getting jazzed up about a campaign finance issue, even if it’s linked to national security. Yes, if you ask voters, they’ll probably almost unanimously agree that members of Congress should focus on thwarting terrorism instead of raising money. But as we’ve seen time and again, there aren’t that many people who care enough to change their vote over something like this. Jolly may genuinely thinks he’s doing the right thing, but he’s essentially martyring himself for a cause that few voters believe in.
Odds are, though, that this is just a cynical move designed to distract from another poor fundraising quarter.
Jolly rather notably hasn’t released his totals for the final three months of 2015 yet, but in the third quarter of last year, he only brought in $378,000—just half of what his top GOP rival raised and barely a quarter of what the leading Democrat, Rep. Patrick Murphy, managed to haul in. If his fundraising was really going gangbusters, would he really yank himself off the court like this?
Yet in doing so, Jolly is seriously undermining his campaign. A good staff is essential for bringing in money, but the candidate actually needs to do the grueling work of asking donors for money. This isn’t something you can outsource: No one can do a better job convincing donors to give money to David Jolly than David Jolly. The problem, in all likelihood, is that he just wasn’t doing a very good job of it to begin with.
But if he wants to be a senator, he just doesn’t have much of a choice. Very wealthy candidates can afford to avoid long hours dialing for dollars, but Jolly isn’t rich enough to cover his campaign’s expenses by himself. You occasionally see presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders who can raise vast sums without needing to cold-call big donors, but those are rare cases. It’s hard to inspire that kind of unsolicited loyalty outside a high-profile presidential race with built-in grassroots appeal.
Super PACs are nice to have in your corner, but there’s only so much they can do. As The National Journal’s Andrea Drusch reminds us, super PACs need to spend far more money than campaigns to purchase ad time because FCC regulations give candidates—but not outside groups—discounted rates on TV and radio. Super PACs also can’t pay campaign staff salaries, and of course, they are barred from coordinating with campaigns (though there are ways to get around these rules). While it seems that virtually every credible Senate candidate needs to have a super PAC in his or her corner these days, they aren’t a substitute for a well-financed campaign.
Jolly is essentially trying to fulfill the personal fantasy of pretty much every candidate in America. To put it bluntly, fundraising sucks. It’s tedious, it’s often humiliating, and successful candidates need to do it for hours each day. To get a sense of how brutal it is, check out this series of tweets from reporter Ryan Lizza, who once overheard an unnamed freshman Democratic House member in a tough district making fundraising calls. Lizza summed it up: “Making fundraising calls is a lot like reporting: Nobody takes your calls. Ratio of messages left to people contacted so far is about 10:1.”
If candidates could just completely hand off this onerous task to their staff and still win, you can bet they all would in a heart beat. But that’s just not how campaigns work, especially in a massive state like Florida. Running in a difficult race while refusing to fundraise is kind of like trying to get drafted by an NBA team while refusing to exercise. You may have a passion for the game and you may understand all the strategic plays, but if you don’t work out, you’re not going to get very far. Jolly may believe in what he’s doing, and he may have a less stressful campaign than any of his opponents. But he’s unlikely to make it to the Senate.