In the 2008 election, the DCCC spent $60 million dollars to help the Democrats gain 21 seats in Congress, outspending the NRCC by a 3-1 margin. Did this financial advantage allow the DCCC to spend in more races or spend a lot in a few key races?

When looking at the highest spending races, both parties were effective in different ways. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) placed over $1 million dollars on TV advertising in 34 different races, while the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) could only match in 7 of those same races. Strangely enough, each committee won 70% of the races they placed in. Even further, the DCCC also spent $2 million or more in 9 races, losing 4 of them (including NJ-07 and NY-26), despite the NRCC not being able to match those amounts.

GOP incumbents were a major target for the DCCC, going on the offensive in 15 of the 34 races they spent a million or more, while only trying to defend 8 Democratic incumbents, while the remaining 11 were open seats. Meanwhile, the NRCC defended 6 of their incumbents in the 7 races they spent 1 million plus, successfully defending 4 of them. Using the limited resources at their disposal, the NRCC was able to defend the same amount of seats that the DCCC spent $2 to even $3 million in losing efforts in other races. While the NRCC appears to have been more efficient, the DCCC had the ability to take more chances in expensive races, but in the end both sides came away with the same winning percentage.

Republican and Democratic Winning Percentage Chart by Spending Level and Incumbency

	Republican		Democratic
	Victories	%	Victories	%
DCCC spent $1 mil+	11	32%	23	68%
NRCC spent $1 mil+	5	71%	2	29%
DCCC spent $2 mil+	4	44%	5	56%
Republican Incumbent	6	40%	9	60%
Democratic Incumbent	2	25%	6	75%