With Sue Rezin and Catalina Lauf surging at the right time, plus the dark money spending against Oberweis, it’s possible
It’s the day before the Republican primary in the 14th congressional district, and with the seven candidates narrowed down to three based on polling and candidates’ responses to polling, applying some guerrilla math projections to FEC metrics, Oberweis finishing 3rd, trailing the two women is a real possibility.
And if an Oberweis 3rd place finish holds true, which of the two women have surged to win the primary?
And what impact will the Coronavirus and the competitive Democratic presidential primary have on turnout in the Republican primary?
And finally, can Lauf overcome any shortfalls in her campaign with her social media following, in particular her 63K+ followers on Twitter.
Three factors have not figured into a Republican congressional primary in this district: Coronavirus, significant dark money spending opposing candidates and a candidate with superior social media presence.
The Coronavirus impact, and any impact to voter turnout, is completely unexplored territory, and cannot be measured. Before reaching the crisis it has become with schools, bars and sit-down restaurants being closed, many voters could have taken advantage of early voting, including vote by mail.
The Kane County Clerk said early voting set a record for a primary election. And if the other 6 county clerks say the same, maybe Coronavirus has minimal impact.
Financially,, here’s the admittedly guerrilla math projection, based on FEC filings from the Pre-primary report, and Form 6 (post 2/26 receipts) and Form 24 (Independent Expenditures-IEs). The creative accounting Oberweis did with his loan payback has been factored out of his receipts and spend numbers through February 26, sourced from the FEC Pre-primary report filing:
| Receipts thru 2/26 | Spend thru 2/26 | COH 2/26 + Post 2/26 Receipts | Proj. Spend (spend plus COH/receipts) | IE Opposition all of 2020 | Net Projected Spend | |
| Oberweis | 1,019,647.04 | 604,618.78 | 422,628.26 | 1,027,247 | 1,076,810 | (49,563) |
| Rezin | 508,729.19 | 423,875.53 | 256,253.66 | 680,129 | 42,293 | 637,836 |
| Lauf | 231,841.19 | 219,295.62 | 60,935.07 | 280,231 | 23,500 | 256,731 |
It must be noted the “Post 2/26 Receipts” are only contributions of $1,000 and over. Contributions less than $1,000 after February 26 are not included in the column or in this analysis.
Focusing on the last column, “Net Projected Spend”, the Oberweis number is a negative of nearly $50,000. Which means the over $1 million of dark money IE opposition offsets the most money Oberweis could have spent to combat the IEs.
In particular, the $910K of Illinois Conservatives PAC dark money wipes out Oberweis’ cash-on-hand plus post 2/26 receipts (3rd column). Meaning, Oberweis was outspent two to one in the final 10 days of the campaign on broadcast TV and radio ads.
In determining the Rezin vs. Lauf showdown, given neither faced nearly as much negative advertising from dark money sources as Oberweis, a $381,105 gap exists between Rezin’s Net Spend and Lauf’s.
That is about the cost for a modest cable TV commercial ad buy in the Chicagoland market.
Thus far, Rezin has run three different commercials through TV ad buys, and Lauf has been dark from TV advertising. Apart from her recent appearances on FOX News, Lauf has had no TV presence.
Now, can Lauf’s presence on social media make up the difference?
Here’s an example of what her social media can do. Last night, Lauf held a tele town hall, and I jumped on the call to listen. Given the service provider keeps metrics, Lauf shared the attendance in Twitter:
Keep that word in mind for a teleconference–“THOUSANDS”.
Where’s Gradel in this analysis, given he’s raised a significant amount of money? Given the quality of Gradel’s advertising, and the shellacking he has taken with U.S. Stem Cell Clinic, LLC, from Oberweis and especially Rezin, he may finish as low as 5th.
Going into the final weekend before the primary, Rezin did not engage in negative campaigning against Lauf. A source close to her campaign confirmed no negative robocalls against Lauf from the Rezin campaign, and there were no IE FEC filings from anyone apart from the Gradel-allied PAC.
And in Rezin’s mailing, she is clearly targeting Gradel, and a lesser degree, Oberweis.
So given those observations, the Rezin campaign’s internal polling did not consider Lauf a threat.
Lauf, in addition to her ground game, has been taking shots at Oberweis, Rezin and Gradel through unsolicited text messages and robocalls. An IE mailer supporting Lauf will be hitting the street on Monday.
Here’s an example of an unsolicited text from Lauf’s campaign shared by an Underwood supporter on Twitter:
Well, from an honesty and integrity perspective using the epithet of “RINOs” and claiming opponents don’t support the President is a serious charge. Rezin’s mailer this past weekend, while not singling out Lauf by name, did include this defense of Rezin supporting President Trump in defense of attacks from Oberweis and Gradel:
And then this feedback of Lauf’s robocall from a James Marter supporter and Marter’s reaction:
Marter’s response is transcribed for ease of reading:
“Lauf never voted in the 14th district she is running in. She supported ANTI-Trump Bruce Rauner all the way. Now she’s out pedaling the lie she’s the only one in the race who supports the President. We can’t trust her. She doesn’t even know what ERA stands for or what nuclear power is! I support Trump!
James Marter, from campaign Facebook page, 3/13/20
.
While McHenry County Blog received only one robocall recording from the New Prosperity Foundation PAC, the Facebook commenter’s feedback is consistent to the text message excerpt from last week.
Factoring in all of the candidates like Oberweis and Marter have their own ground games, maybe all of this analysis is useless? Doesn’t matter who’s run the best campaign, who looks the best or who has the most Twitter following or endorsements, what counts is who has the most votes.
So tomorrow, who will win the 7-way winner-take-all Republican primary for the honor to challenge Congresswoman Lauren Underwood’s reelection in November?
With seven candidates, it’s easy for the top vote getter to win the nomination with a plurality of the vote of 20% to low 30%s.
And remember the “THOUSANDS” who dialed-in to Lauf’s teleconference yesterday.
Given the large field of candidates, one should not be surprised if the determination of a nominee goes into overtime and mail-in ballots will have to be counted before knowing whom the winner is.
Be prepared for a long night watching returns.
Yes. The women have the lead in all of the races!
This blog has become worse than the NY Slimes.
**based on polling and candidates’ responses to polling, applying some guerrilla math projections to FEC metrics, Oberweis finishing 3rd, trailing the two women is a real possibility.**
LOL… your “guerilla math” isn’t really math at all.
Every publicly released poll has had Oberweis winning comfortably.
So unless you’re seeing polling elsewhere that isn’t shared, you’re just making stuff up.
**Focusing on the last column, “Net Projected Spend”, the Oberweis number is a negative of nearly $50,000.
Which means the over $1 million of dark money IE opposition offsets the most money Oberweis could have spent to combat the IEs.**
Also… this REALLY is not how campaign spending works.
Yup, AlabamaShake, when over $1 million in dark money is spent against Oberweis since he last released his poll in early February, things change.
He stopped sharing polls, particularly when the calendar turned to March.
I sure hope so…
Look. Obviously a $1M negative ad campaign will have an impact.
But it doesn’t work in the weird way you claim it goes.
It absolutely doesn’t negate all of Oberweis’s spending.
You have a point, Alabama, concerning strong supporters will not be swayed by negative ads, no matter the media saturation.
But Oberweis’ polling lead was built off of name ID, and that support is usually “soft” and easily swayed away to support someone else in the face of negative attacks.
Oberweis’ campaign only issued one response ad, and did not loan itself more money in the past week.
And the mailer he did send was very flawed, comparing himself to 3 main rivals, as documented yesterday.
Also, something that did not show in assessing negative ads because it is not measurable is negative attacks from other campaigns.
In his Dan Proft interview Thursday morning, Oberweis estimated he’s faced $1.5 million total in negative ads. $200K was added over the weekend. He says that is unprecedented, and given how many times he’s run for federal office (5), that says something.
One thing is certain, Oberweis is not the “safe bet” for the nomination I and many others saw when he released his poll in early February.
Another note, those aren’t dark money groups, we know who the money is coming from.
Many of my friends who were on the fence are now voting for Lauf.
Her teleconference was outstanding.
Answered a lot of questions people had, she was poised, showed leadership and reaffirmed those who supported her since day 1 why she’s been the best bet all along.
This will be a two way race between Oberweis and Lauf, as it has always been.
Had he been a Stand up man who loves this country, he would’ve supported one of the other candidates and excused himself from the race all together.
But no.
He didn’t.
He will not spoil this.
There is too much at stake for our State to allow that to happen.
**Oberweis’ campaign only issued one response ad, and did not loan itself more money in the past week.
You think this means that he could lose.
It could alse mean that his internal polls show him still comfortably in the lead.
**And the mailer he did send was very flawed, comparing himself to 3 main rivals, as documented yesterday.**
I mean…most of the mail has been incredibly flawed.
Not just Oberweis.
The rinos are gone this time around in my book you had many chances to prove your self to us and this country you have done nothing… time for new blood, and i don’t care if its a cat i have to write in to may a point so be it.. we the people have had enough of nothingness….. samo samo…
FLamont, without getting into the idiosyncrasies of what is a “dark money group”, or simply an “independent expenditure”, the clarifying question to ask is, who are the donor(s) to the three PACs working in the 14th district Republican primary RIGHT NOW.
First, who are the three PACs:
– New Prosperity Foundation PAC
– Illinois Conservatives PAC, formed 3/2/20
– Our Future, Our Fight PAC, formed 12/19, filed year-end report late January unfunded
Yes, we know who’s been donating to New Prosperity Foundation, and that was how Cal in early February tracked down a maxed-out Ted Gradel donor to it, and New Prosperity is known to be “Gradel ally”.
The other two, we don’t know who is contributing financially, since the big one was formed on March 2nd, and while the other was formed in December and filed a year end report in January, it was unfunded then.
They are being funded now, and since we do not know who they are, that is “dark money” in my book.
Eventually, like next month, all of these PACs will file a Form 3X to the FEC and we can see the whos, then, but it will not be until after the primary.
Jeff, while I have heard/read many who have moved to Lauf in the past month, do not be so quick to write off Sue Rezin. Everything I can tell, her campaign has responded and is using credible internal polling data, and while a month ago, the race went from Oberweis’ to lose, to it’s a race between Oberweis and Rezin when she picked up newspaper endorsements in mid-February, this blog acknowledged Lauf’s surge that was noticeable and backed up by published metrics (FEC filings, independent poll, Huntley debate) by the end of the first week of March.
I think if Lauf had been a genuine threat to Rezin, her campaign people would have added Lauf to the Opponents page of her campaign website and started posting negatives about Lauf, beginning with the video of her Batavia debate and her ERA question gaffe.
I was on the teleconference yesterday too, and I did hear a confident Lauf, but I also heard some things that troubled me, as I made notes on Twitter. As I said of Lauf in another article comment, she is an unpolished and uncut gem.
But as I also said, by an act of God, including without any TV commercial advertising, Lauf wins tomorrow night, she will have to become cut and polished very quickly. That will start the following day, when the NRCC moves in and takes over her campaign and begins hiring her general election campaign staff.
And should Lauf find herself in that position, may she remember Who to thank when declaring victory, given the many people who are praying for her, at least what I’ve seen on social media.
Well by that same logic the campaigns take “dark money” until their FEC reports come out…..
A dark money group or dark money IE is one where you never know who the donors are.
We will know the donors to all three of these.
I feel like you are using the term “dark money” to make this seem nefarious which is dishonest at best.
FLamont, you’re welcome to your opinion about my use of the term “dark money”, but it’s not the truth and you’re just wrong.
You are right, to a point, concerning campaigns.
Federal races with contributions of over $1,000 from a donor in the last 3 weeks must file a Form 6 to the FEC within 48 hours, just like Illinois races have to file an A-1.
So we do know whom the larger campaign contributions, or “hard money”, come from before we cast a vote in most cases.
That Form 6 requirement also includes candidates loaning themselves money, or contributing unlimited amount of cash to their campaigns within the final three weeks.
Do not be fooled by Catalina Lauf. She is not a conservative and is completely unqualified for Congress in the 14th. These facts have been publicized since September 3.
Here is the short version:
1) Lauf began a $3000 a month job February 1, 2018 working for Liberal Bruce Rauner after he had signed HB40 the most expansive abortion rights bill in the US and had signed SB31 essentially making Illinois a Sanctuary State for criminal illegal immigrants. Lauf opposed conservative champion Jeanne Ives in the primary.
2) Lauf has never voted in the 14th District. Moved into her parents’ basement from Chicago to run for Congress.
3) Lauf has been laughed out of candidate forums for not knowing what the ERA bill meant, and confusing nuclear warheads with nuclear energy production.
4) Worked only 10 months for President Trump at a low level position but never met him and has no references or stated
accomplishments there.
Don’t be tricked. Vote for a candidate with a real record and professional background, not someone who has memorized talking points and pretends to be someone she is not.
FLamont is right about what dark money is.
When I need the advice of pinko-ANTIFA goons like Flaming Flamont or the Alabama snake in grass, I’ll ask for it.
Alabama, you and FLamont are right.
Apologies for my laziness for not wanting to write out “independent expenditure” (try saying that three times fast), and for following Jim Oberweis’ lead when he called it “dark money”, including his final TV commercial.