Georgia’s burgeoning U.S. Senate race, which features multiple Republican U.S. House members, is putting influential donors in a bind.
The state’s power brokers and heavy-hitting Washington-based groups must soon decide whether to back a candidate — and in some cases, they are backing off.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of federal contribution data shows that 86 political action committees and 20 individuals last year donated to at least two of the three Republican House members most likely to run for the Senate: Paul Broun of Athens, Phil Gingrey of Marietta and Jack Kingston of Savannah.
Broun and Gingrey already have filed the paperwork to run, while Kingston has told allies he is in. U.S. Rep. Tom Price of Roswell has said he will decide next month whether to run for the seat being vacated by Saxby Chambliss.
The PACs are primarily for Georgia-based companies or associations, or in industries covered by the members’ committees. In addition, Broun, Gingrey and Price are all doctors, meaning they get substantial support from physicians’ groups.
The American College of Radiology’s PAC donated the legal maximum of $10,000 to Gingrey and Price, and $7,000 to Broun during the 2012 cycle. But the group is staying out of the Senate primary.
“There’s nothing to gain and really a lot to lose because these are relationships and people we know really well,” said Ted Burnes, the PAC’s director.
Burnes said Gingrey’s camp was pressuring him for a donation, and he replied: “We’re not going to get in the middle” of a tussle.
The race will put top politicians in a similar bind. While Gov. Nathan Deal has vowed to keep his distance from the race, the candidates are likely to line up to seek the endorsements, and the financial support, of other prominent Georgia politicians.
Some donors already have made their choice. Taz Anderson, the chairman of Atlanta-based Taz Anderson Realty, donated $2,500 to Broun’s campaign and another $2,000 to Gingrey’s last year. But when both announced for Senate, he sided with Gingrey.
“If we can have more guys like him up there, we’d be OK,” said Anderson. “I like Paul, but I just decided to go with Phil. I’ve got a closer relationship with him. He’s a constitutionalist, and there aren’t many guys with the guts to support that.”
PACs tend to be more cautious. Incumbents typically are the biggest beneficiaries from business PACs, which want to build good relationships with lawmakers who have a say on their issues — and do not want to risk a winner’s wrath by picking the wrong horse.
Georgia Power’s PAC donated to all of Georgia’s members of Congress last year, but spokesman Mark Williams said, “We do not anticipate being active in that primary.” And the Medical Association of Georgia, mindful that three physicians could wind up in the race, is also taking a wait-and-see approach. Several other PACs, including those of Delta Air Lines and Home Depot, either declined comment or were noncommittal on the race.
Gingrey entered the year with the biggest campaign bankroll, $1.87 million. He was followed by Price at $1.57 million, Kingston at $988,000 and Broun at $155,000. All have accelerated their money-seeking since Chambliss announced his pending retirement, and the money from their House accounts can be transferred to a Senate campaign.
The nature of a competitive Senate primary makes raising money a different challenge, as it requires more money and comes without some of the benefits of incumbency. In the 2012 cycle Kingston got two-thirds of his contributions from PACs and Gingrey and Price received about half their money from PACs, while Broun took in less than a third.
Add in the fact that Georgia’s GOP donor base will be strained by a frenzied 2014 election cycle. Not only is the open Senate seat drawing a crowd, but so are the three to five Congressional seats vacated by Senate aspirants. The dominoes extend to the Gold Dome, with state House and Senate members departing to run for Congress.
Joel McElhannon, a Georgia Republican political consultant who is not affiliated with any of the Senate candidates at this point, said raising money will be particularly challenging for the sitting House members as many PACs and big donors sit out the primary.
“One of the great dangers in serving in Congress for a longer period of time is every Congress member tends to focus more on PACs than they do on the people back home in terms of fundraising,” McElhannon said.
“People tend to let their political networks go. They let their donor networks go because it’s easier to raise money from D.C. PACs. Kingston and Gingrey, for the first time in a very long time, are sitting down and dusting off their Rolodexes and going back to folks they haven’t talked to for a while. It’s going to be a very interesting three-to-six months.”
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Last year 86 political action committees and 20 individuals donated to more than one of the three most likely Republican Senate candidates from the U.S. House: Reps. Paul Broun, Phil Gingrey and Jack Kingston. Here are a few of them
Amounts for calendar year 2012, from an AJC analysis of Federal Election Commission data.
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