DCCC Expands List of Reserved Ad Buys

by Todd Beeton [courtesy of MyDD]

A couple weeks ago, the DCCC revealed the 31 races they're targeting with $35 million worth of ad buys this fall (so far the time is just reserved, not bought.) The list consisted of 11 Democratic incumbents and one Dem open seat where the committee would be going on defense; the rest are seats currently held by the GOP.

We really have an embarrassment of riches this year, especially considering how many seats we took last cycle, but thanks to a plethora of GOP retirements and a favorable political environment for Democrats, whereas the DCCC's 2007 goal was to put 35-40 GOP seats in play, the 2008 reality is that there are actually 62 seats the DCCC considers competitive. So, it is not surprising to see the list of races where the DCCC is reserving ad time expand by 20 seats for a total of $53 million in 51 districts.

From Swing State Project:

AL-02 (Open): $598K
AL-05 (Open): $678K
AZ-08 (Giffords - D): $705K
CA-04 (Open) & CA-11 (McNerney - D): $2.03M
FL-18 (Ros-Lehtinen - R), FL-21 (L. Diaz-Balart - R) and FL-25 (M. Diaz Balart - R): $1.4M
ID-01 (Sali - R): $349K
IL-10 (Kirk - R): $1.4M
IL-11 (Weller - R): $1.6M
IL-14 (Foster - D): $1.02M
LA-04 (Open): $714K
MO-06 (Graves - R): $798K
MS-01 (Childers - D): $1.06M
NJ-03 (Open): $1.7M
NY-25 (Open), NY-26 (Open), NY-29 (Kuhl - R): $2.7M
WA-08 (Reichert - R): $949,000

Chris Cilizza breaks it down:

When examining all 51 districts in which the DCCC has so far reserved ad time, 34 of the districts (66 percent) are Republican held while the remaining 17 are controlled by Democrats.

Unlike elections past, however, House Democrats are focusing as much on incumbents as open seats. Of the 34 Republican seats, 17 are open while 17 are held by members. That speaks to the treacherous national environment in which the GOP currently finds itself with a far larger number of incumbents in jeopardy than previous elections.

Great to see they intend to compete hard for Darcy, Charlie Brown and Eric Massa among others. And it's good to see the DCCC is as bullish on those 3 southern Florida seats as I am after meeting Annette Taddeo and Joe Garcia at Netroots Nation.