Benchmarking An Elite Netroots Endorsement

In considering any Democratic hopeful's run against incumbent U.S. Senator John Cornyn, I've researched around to try and find a benchmark for what an elite Netroots endorsement might be worth to a Congressional campaign. In short, it's almost impossible to model the impact of such an endorsement effectively due to data issues; oh if only the world were my laboratory! A control group here, an experimental group there, and voila! We could really emphasize the "science" in "social science."

Now that my daydream is over, let's get down to business. Based on available information and similarities in race dynamics, I think the best benchmark for examining the impact of an elite Netroots endorsement is Kos' endorsement of Jon Tester in the 2006 U.S. Senate contest between first Jon Tester and John Morrison in the Democratic primary and subsequently between Jon Tester and incumbent Senator Conrad Burns. Here are my reasons for using this benchmark:

1) There is still a tremendous amount of information in the public domain on the Internet regarding this race, including blog posts, news articles and FEC filings;

2) Tester faced a more traditional rival in the Democratic primary and then faced an unpopular incumbent Republican with a lot of money, much like a grassroots candidate out of the State House might face in a primary and in the general election.

The impact of Kos' endorsement of Tester is difficult to isolate for a number of reasons, but by reviewing important dates and correlating these dates with FEC filings over the course of the 2006 cycle, I think we can develop a rough picture of the positive impact that such an endorsement would have for a candidate.

State Senator Jon Tester faced off against State Auditor John Morrison in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Montana during the 2006 cycle. Morrison enjoyed a substantial fundraising advantage over Tester over the course of the primary contest, outraising him in 3 of the 5 FEC reports during this time period, ending with total contributions of $1,529,943.99 to Tester's $844,680.17, an advantage of just over half a million dollars. All campaign financial data from the FEC Report Image Search website:

MORRISON (Morrison for Montana, Inc.):
FEC Filing Date / Contributions Other Than Loans This Period
07/05 / 403,529.28
10/05 / 240,324.57
2005 Year End / 407,684.59
04/06 / 354,112.16
Pre-Primary / 123,903.41

TESTER (Montanans for Tester):
FEC Filing Date / Contributions Other Than Loans This Period
07/05 / 57,689.12
10/05 / 319,049.58
2005 Year End / 88,714.03
04/06 / 231,065.04
Pre-Primary / 147,787.40

While Kos first discussed the excitement over Jon Tester on December 16, 2004, the Tester blogging began in earnest with consistent diaries from Kos about the Tester campaign and the primary and general election dynamics in Montana beginning in the Spring of 2006 and seeding a multitude of user diaries about the race and its principles around the same time. The fly in the ointment here is that what drove a large part of this discussion was the unfolding adultery/conflict of interest scandal around State Auditor John Morrison. The investigation of Morrison's adultery-related issues coincided with questions about the investigation by Morrison's office into alleged securities fraud on the part of his former mistress's husband.

Despite Morrison's substantial fundraising advantage, he lost convincingly to Jon Tester in the June 2006 primary, 38,380 to 65,722. A conservative guess on this outcome is that Kos's endorsement may have had some impact on Tester's fundraising during the time span reflected in the October 2005 FEC filing, it's probably the case that Morrison's scandalicious-ness being saturated in the small media market that is Montana had more to do with Tester's victory.

With the primary over, the race entered the period where I believe we saw the biggest impact of an elite Netroots endorsement fueled by two factors: Continued commentary and fundraising by Kos and the publication of Markos and Jerome's Crashing the Gate on September 1, 2006.

Conrad Burns was a very well-funded incumbent who, going into the 2006 cycle, was also the most unpopular Senator in the U.S. Senate. Setting aside Montana's "blueness" in the Governor's mansion and in the state legislature compared to Texas' "redness," Cornyn in the 2008 cycle matches up quite well with Burns circa the 2006 cycle: One of the Senate's most unpopular Senators, $2.7 million cash on hand in October of 2006 and hopefully about to face a populist Democrat from the state legislature who is authentically Texan as opposed to Cornyn, whose record in the Senate is authentically offensive.

BURNS (Friends of Conrad Burns):
FEC Filing Date / Contributions Other Than Loans This Period / Cash On Hand
07/06 / 519,448.89 / 2,208,890.35
10/06 / 1,393,845.34 / 1,705,251.87
Pre-General / 355,539.88 / 1,241,124.21

TESTER (Montanans for Tester):
FEC Filing Date / Contributions Other Than Loans This Period
07/06 / 864,376.72 / 514,907.35
10/06 / 2,091,118.58 / 570,957.16
Pre-General / 591,850.46 / 503,833.52

While Burns entered the general election with over four times the cash on hand of Tester (thanks in part to an insignificant primary election and his incumbency), Tester outraised him in each of the three filing periods leading up to the general election which Tester won, 198,302 to 195,455, giving Montana an all Democratic Senate delegation.

Any casual observer or student of politics will tell you that incumbency is a significant advantage when it comes to re-election. Burns' low approval rating, odious record in the Senate and penchant for public displays of heartlessness and ignorance certainly helped Tester, but I don't think there's any way that Burns could have been outraised in every filing period down the stretch without the Netroots support for Tester, support that Kos was responsible for seeding and nurturing.

While we need more data in order to better assess the impact of an elite Netroots endorsement on a campaign, I think that looking to the Tester example provides us with the beginnings of insight on the positive impact such an endorsement can play by seeding a candidate in the Netroots community and nurturing coverage and fundraising for said candidate. I hope that in March 2009, I can come back here and write a comparison of Jon Tester's campaign and the successful campaign of a grassroots, people-powered, Netroots-supported Democratic Senator from Texas.