Most Super PACs yet to enter Georgia Senate race

An instant player in Georgia’s U.S. Senate race owns a chunk of the Chicago Cubs and lives in Little Jackson Hole, Wyo.

Joe Ricketts is the founder of the Ending Spending Action Fund, a Super PAC putting a novel twist on outside political spending by attacking Democrat Michelle Nunn and Republican U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey at the same time.

Ending Spending was the first Super PAC to weigh in on the wide-open race to replace Sen. Saxby Chambliss, as other groups that have dropped millions elsewhere on the map warily eyed a Republican field with five strong candidates that is almost certain to go to a primary runoff.

Heavy hitters such as American Crossroads, which backs Republicans it deems more electable in general elections, and the Senate Conservatives Fund, which supports archconservative insurgents, remain on the sidelines ahead of the May 20 primary — at least for now.

But there are potential influencers everywhere. A South Carolina-based group called Citizens for a Working America, which had yet to spend a dime this election cycle, launched a $500,000 ad campaign Friday attacking U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Savannah.

“This is political game theory,” said Joel McElhannon, a Georgia Republican political consultant who is unaligned in the Senate race and said he has been in touch with some Super PACs. “It’s a completely fluid situation with a whole lot of money that can’t be coordinated. It’s a whole lot of different folks assessing a changing set of variables.”

A series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in recent years have helped unleash a flood of unlimited cash from individuals and businesses to third-party groups that cannot coordinate with a campaign but can attack and support candidates at will.

Ending Spending was founded in 2010, and its first big target was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. With a platform of fighting the national debt, it has typically attacked Democrats and supported Republicans, only occasionally weighing in on primary races. It backed U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, during his 2012 primary, and this year it is hitting U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., who faces a difficult primary.

In Georgia, Ending Spending has spent $1.3 million for ad time ahead of the May 20 primary — with the potential of more to come all the way through November.

The group started with a commercial showing Nunn, the CEO of the volunteer service nonprofit Points of Light, grinning with President Barack Obama and claiming she supports the new health care law and higher taxes. Nunn has said she wants to make “fixes” to the law known as Obamacare, including delaying the requirement that all individuals buy health insurance, and she supports changes in the tax code that do not increase overall tax revenue.

Not long after the Nunn ad debuted, Ending Spending launched an attack on Gingrey, a six-term congressman from Marietta, pointing to his past votes to raise the debt ceiling and his support of earmarks.

“I”m just very surprised that a conservative member would be attacked,” Gingrey said when asked about the ads. “Certainly I would not be picked out as a moderate, but as a conservative. … I think Washington or these Super PACs should just leave Georgia alone and let us pick the best candidate who has the best chance of winning this seat and keeping it in Republican hands in November.”

Ending Spending still hasn’t said which candidate it would like to be Georgia’s next senator, only that it does not want Nunn or Gingrey.

The group's president, Brian Baker, said its goal is "electing fiscally responsible senators" and those two do not fit the bill. But on the Republican side, Kingston voted for many of the same things, and some outside organizations considered his voting record less conservative than Gingrey's. The Citizens for Working America ad declares Kingston the "King of Earmarks."

Baker would not say why Ending Spending has not gone after Kingston.

In March, just before the Georgia ad buys were announced, Ending Spending took in $1.35 million from three donors: Ricketts; Paul Singer, the CEO of a Wall Street investment firm; and The Baupost Group, a Boston-based hedge fund.

Singer and Baupost Group founder Seth Klarman also have put forth millions to back Republicans who support changes in the immigration system and gay rights as part of an effort to broaden the party’s appeal.

Many in Washington and Georgia political circles consider Gingrey or U.S. Rep. Paul Broun of Athens to be weaker general election candidates against Nunn because of their hard-right voting records and history of controversial statements. For example, Gingrey, an obstetrician/gynecologist, said former Rep. Todd Akin was “partly right” when he said a woman’s body could prevent conception after a rape if the rape was “legitimate.”

The Ending Spending ads were a chance to define Gingrey on television before he could do it himself, as his $2.44 million in campaign cash at the end of March was the most of any Republican in the Senate race.

Only a couple of outside groups have made such a leap, but there are signs the dam could break soon.

Some conservative groups have made endorsements but not kicked in outside spending yet. The Madison Project has backed Broun, while the American Future Fund is behind former Secretary of State Karen Handel — and a spokesman said the AFF will spend money on the primary.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce — which has spent big supporting GOP Senate incumbents against tea party insurgents in Kentucky and Mississippi — endorsed Kingston on Thursday and gave signs that independent spending will follow.

But several free-spending conservative groups who have gotten involved in other primaries, such as Americans for Prosperity and the Club for Growth, have not endorsed a candidate.

Chip Lake, a Republican consultant who used to work on Gingrey’s campaign, said extending the primary runoff from three weeks to nine weeks this year has changed outside groups’ calculus.

“It gives them more time to make an evaluation as to whether they A, spend money; B, how much money; and C, how can it be best used,” Lake said.

Given the stakes of Georgia’s U.S. Senate race, it’s not if but when the flood of outside spending will come.

In 2012 the campaigns, parties and outside groups spent a combined $12 million on Georgia’s 12th Congressional District race. McElhannon extrapolated that the Senate contest — particularly if it goes to a general election runoff, with control of the Senate hanging in the balance — could be a $100 million race.

“It’s unprecedented,” he said. “We’re just getting a taste of it right now.”