By Matthew Langston
After Republican Dan Bishop narrowly defeated Democrat Dan McCready in the special election for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, both political parties rushed to point out bright spots in the results.
For Republicans, they managed to win a close race that some argued was a referendum on President Donald Trump before the 2020 election. Bishop also flipped two counties that McCready won in 2018 and even came close to winning in a third one.
For Democrats, their candidate came within two percentage points of winning a district that Trump won by more than 11 points in 2016. McCready also improved on his 2018 performance in Mecklenburg County, which contains a number of suburbs. That’s worth noting since the suburbs will likely be a key political background in 2020.
That background information brings us to this article from Townhall, a conservative website. Trump linked to the article in a Facebook post the day after the special election.
There are several claims to fact-check from the Townhall article, so let’s take a closer look at them.
The Claims
The Townhall article opens by talking about how Republicans still won in North Carolina, despite Democrats being “heavily focused on winning in North Carolina’s 3rd and 9th Congressional Districts.”
A special election was held in the coastal 3rd District on the same day as the election in the 9th District. In that race, Republican Greg Murphy easily defeated Democrat Allen Thomas race by just over 24 percentage points.
Townhall’s wording suggests that Democrats seriously attempted to win the 3rd District, but neither party really invested in trying to win the solidly Republican district. Murphy was never at risk of losing, and a Democrat hasn’t earned more than 37 percent of the vote in the district since at least 2000. Thomas earned just over 37 percent in the special election, which was held after Rep. Walter Jones passed away in February.
The article also says that Democrats outspent the GOP heavily in the North Carolina elections. That’s not exactly the case, and there are two aspects to examine this claim: spending by the candidates and spending by outside groups.
The most recent campaign finance reports from the Federal Election Commission only cover spending up to Aug. 21 and don’t include the last three weeks before Election Day, which was Sept. 10 for both elections. Campaign spending numbers from that period aren’t available until Oct. 10 and could affect which party actually spent more in the special elections.
But, as it is, if we start with the 3rd District, operating expenditures for Thomas totaled just over $468,000, while operating expenditures for Murphy added up to a bit less than $800,000.
In the 9th District, operating expenditures for McCready were more than $4.3 million, while operating expenditures for Bishop totaled just under $1.8 million.
When only looking at spending by the candidates, Townhall’s claim seems accurate. The numbers show that while Thomas didn’t outspend Murphy in the 3rd District, McCready did heavily outspend Bishop in the 9th District.
The Center for Responsive Politics website provides the numbers for spending by outside groups in the 3rd and 9thDistrict special elections.
All outside spending in the 3rd District race appears to have been made by conservative groups, likely during the contested Republican primary, while outside spending in the 9th District race was more extensive and divided between conservative and liberal groups.
Since the Center for Responsive Politics doesn’t show any outside spending being made by liberal groups in the 3rdDistrict, UNC FactCheck excluded outside spending for that race and focused instead on outside spending in the 9th District.
There are two important details to note with outside spending.
The first is that the available data doesn’t show what money was spent by conservative groups in support of Bishop during the primary versus during the general election. No conservative groups spent any money opposing Bishop.
The second detail is that some outside spending made in the final weeks of the election may not be on file, so the actual outside spending numbers may be even higher.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, nearly $2.5 million was spent in support of McCready, while just over $5.8 million was spent in opposition to him. About $1 million was spent in support of Bishop, while a little less than $1.5 million was spent in opposition to him.
To determine whether Democrats did outspend Republicans in the 9th District, UNC FactCheck came up with a method that took spending by the candidates and combined it with spending by outside groups to find total spending by the two political parties.
For McCready, that meant taking his spending numbers and combining it with pro-McCready and anti-Bishop outside spending numbers. For Bishop, that meant taking his spending numbers and combining it with pro-Bishop and anti-McCready outside spending numbers.
Most outside groups aren’t officially considered Republican or Democratic but have clear ideological and partisan preferences, as seen on the Center for Responsive Politics website. With few exceptions, conservative groups support Republicans and liberal groups support Democrats.
While McCready outspent Bishop in terms of campaign spending, conservative groups heavily outspent liberal groups in the 9th District. This outside spending greatly benefitted Bishop and is a relevant detail that Townhall fails to mention in its article.
The numbers show that spending by Bishop and conservative groups was actually higher than spending by McCready and liberal groups, which contradicts the narrative that Republicans were “massively outspent” by Democrats. and it directly conflicts with the president’s post.
Instead, it seems that Republicans actually outspent Democrats in North Carolina’s special elections.
