Democratic House campaign arm raised $11.6M in October

The Democrats’ House campaign arm raised $11.6 million in October, according to fundraising numbers first shared with The Hill. 

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) will report having $67.5 million on hand, its biggest-ever war chest for an October in a year without any regularly scheduled federal elections. The group now has nearly $24 million more in the bank than it did at this point in October 2019. 

The average contribution size to the committee last month was $36, according to the DCCC. 

The DCCC’s GOP counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), hasn’t yet disclosed its October fundraising numbers.

The announcement of the sizable fundraising haul comes as House Democrats celebrate a pair of key legislative victories that they see as crucial to their efforts to retain control of the lower chamber in next year’s midterm elections. 

Last week, the House approved a $1 trillion infrastructure bill that amounts to the largest investment in the country’s public works in decades. President Biden signed that bill earlier this week. 

And earlier on Friday, House Democrats passed a roughly $2 trillion social policy and climate change bill, the centerpiece of Biden’s legislative agenda. The Senate will still need to approve the bill before it heads to the president’s desk.

“House Democrats just delivered two more historic wins for the American people with President Biden’s Infrastructure Deal and Build Back Better Act, and our members are already out on the ground in their communities talking to voters about how these bills will make a direct impact on their everyday lives,” Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), the chair of the DCCC, said in a statement. 

Democrats are essentially staking their midterm prospects on the idea that voters will reward them next year for advancing sweeping pieces of legislation. 

But they’re also facing strong historical headwinds; the party of a new president tends to lose ground in Congress around midterm elections, and Republicans have the edge in the decennial redistricting process.