A plagiarism scandal that drove Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) to drop his re-election bid Thursday was a major blow to the Democratic Party, still intent on proving it can keep its majority in the Senate. It also constituted a major financial loss for Democrats who’d placed their bets on Walsh and saw them evaporate long before he could reach the finish line.

Both parties were invested in the race, a heated battleground for the Senate midterm contest. But the Democratic Party went all out to defend Walsh, a vulnerable candidate who had been named to the seat barely six months ago when predecessor Max Baucus became the U.S. ambassador to China. Senate Democrats huddled to support Walsh, making leadership PACs the fresh appointee’s second largest contributing industry. Forty-two senators — four out of five of Democrats in the upper chamber — gave to Walsh through their leadership PACs, for a total of $246,000.

The most generous of them included the majority leader, Sen. Harry Reid (Nev.), California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, New York Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles E. Schumer, Colorado Sens. Michael F. Bennet and Mark Udall, and Walsh’s colleague in Montana, Sen. Jon Tester. Each gave $10,000 from their leadership PAC. Meanwhile, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee invested close to $18,000 in outside expenditures in the race, one of its nine targets this cycle. The largest outside spender in the election was the progressive veterans’ group VoteVets.org, which spent close to $300,000 backing Walsh.

A look at the geography of the campaign donations in the Montana race also suggests that a lot was at stake nationally — at least for Democrats. While Republican challenger Rep. Steven Daines‘ biggest donor base is in Billings, Mont., the state’s largest city comes in a paltry fifth in the list of metropolitan areas that gave the most to Walsh. He received more from Washington, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. All told, Daines collected more than $375,000 from Billings while Walsh received barely $55,000.

In another sign of the Democratic Party’s preoccupation with the Montana race, it gave Walsh the first stab at introducing a bill that would slash tax breaks for American companies exporting their jobs overseas. The Bring Jobs Home Act — the wording of which was very similar to a measure introduced by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) in 2012, as noted by Politico — could have given him some political gravitas, whether or not the bill, previously blocked by Republicans in 2012, ever makes it through both houses of Congress.

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The Democratic Party also enlisted its best and richest donors to bankroll Walsh’s campaign. Fred Eychaner, a Chicago-based media mogul who is the third biggest individual donor to outside groups this cycle, gave him $5,200, the maximum possible. Robert E. Rubin, the former Secretary of the Treasury, gave $2,600, and Lisa Blue-Baron, whose late husband Fred Baron was a Democratic operative famous for providing expensive cover to the mistress of former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), gave $2,500. In another sign that Washington rainmakers expected Walsh to win, several lobbyists chipped in as well. Donald R. Pongrace of Akin, Gump et al, gave $5,200, while colleague Brian Arthur Pomper gave $2,500. Vester T. Hughes, Jr., of K&L Gates, gave $5,000, and Bert Carp, of Williams & Jensen, gave $2,600.

Still, Walsh raised considerably less than his opponent Daines. As of June 30, pre-plagiarism scandal, he’d pulled in about $2.8 million while his challenger had already passed the $5 million bar. But having spent a good chunk of it, he only had about $700,000 left in the bank. Like his political ambitions, the rest — more than $2 million in campaign expenditures– is history.

CRP Researcher Andrew Mayersohn contributed to this post

Follow Lalita on Twitter at @lalitaclozel



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