The America’s Families First funded ads attacking Scott Tipton (right). Wealthy Democratic donors wake up

Wealthy Democratic donors are making a late entry into the midterm elections, hoping to build a firewall around a small group of vulnerable incumbents and protect the party’s majority in the House and Senate.

America’s Families First Action Fund in late September gathered $1.7 million from a dozen individual donors and one union, the International Association of Firefighters, which pitched in $500,000 to make it the group's largest donor, according to Federal Election Commission disclosure reports.


Within two weeks, the group began airing $1.2 million in television and radio ads and delivering mail attacking eight Republican challengers in competitive House races.

Ramona Oliver, a spokeswoman for the group, said the fund is trying to pick its targets strategically and “help hold the wall against what we know is a tough election.”

According to Oliver, the fund will expand its engagement to 10 more districts by the end of next week — it’s already moved into an open Florida race that could represent a Democratic pickup. The group’s final budget calls for spending about $10 million to defend the Democratic majority.

“We have seen a late surge of interest by donors,” said Oliver. “In the last 10 days, we’ve seen a doubling of interest amongst the donors.”

In addition to advertising, the fund is investing money in voter turnout operations, which many Democrats say will represent their last stand against the Republican tide.

But the fund's haul is dwarfed by that of GOP-allied groups such as American Crossroads and its affiliate Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, which together took in $13.3 million just in the past week and have set a budget goal of more than $50 million. American Crossroads is taking on a very different role than the America's Families group. Crossroads is essentially taking on the role of the Republican National Committee, which has struggled to raise money. Taken together, Republican outside groups could spend more than $100 million in their efforts to retake control of Congress.

The America’s Families Action Fund is one of three newly formed Democratic committees not aligned with a union that are swooping in during the final weeks, hoping to stall the Republicans’ momentum. Disclosure reports for the other two, Patriot Majority PAC and Commonsense Ten, were not available.

As is the case for the Republican outside groups, the Democratic organizations, including labor unions, are trying to coordinate their efforts to avoid overlap and maximize their combined resources.

Unlike the GOP groups, America’s Families contributors do not include corporations. Rather, they largely represent a core group of longtime party backers — some of whom had lobbied Congress to pass legislation that would close the corporate-giving loophole created earlier this year by the Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Agnes Gund, a philanthropist who gave $100,000 to the group, was among the major political donors who signed a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier this year backing the Fair Elections Now Act and promoting reforms that would elevate the role of small donors rather than her own class of giver.

“Community leaders with strong grass-roots support would be able to run for office without the blessing of entrenched insiders or, to be frank, big donors like me,” Gund wrote in an opinion piece highlighting the Pelosi letter.

But as the campaign terrain grew more perilous for Democrats and Republican organizations such as American Crossroads, a group founded with the help of former Bush advisers Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, began raking in millions, America’s Families organizers in August sounded the alarm in a memo to big donors.

After outlining the challenges facing Democrats, the memo warns: “In this environment, there is no guarantee of success, but if there is not a sustained independent effort, failure is likely. The goal is to build a firewall in a select number of House districts.”

The fund officially registered with the Federal Election Commission in August and immediately began reserving television time, said Oliver. In addition to Gund and the firefighters union, the group has received $200,000 from Fred Eyechaner, the owner of a string of Chicago radio stations with progressive programming. Paul Egerman, a Massachusetts software entrepreneur, donated $150,000, and California developer George Marcus gave $250,000.

Although the founding memo for America’s Families promises early tracking of the GOP groups, the engagement of the major Democratic donors less than a month before Election Day may not be in time for some of the candidates the donors hope to protect.

Colorado, for instance, has been a major midterm battlefield for months. With a Senate seat and at least three House seats in play, outside groups have sunk more than $27 million into attacks ads and mail in the state.

Among the House races targeted is the rematch between Colorado Rep. John Salazar (D-Colo.) and Republican businessman Scott Tipton. In early October, the America’s Families First fund spent $144,000 on television ads attacking Tipton, disclosure reports show.

Still, it’s an uphill fight. Salazar won his seat in 2006 and cruised to reelection in 2008 on the wave of President Obama’s presidential bid. With Obama’s numbers down and a virulent anti-incumbent mood among voters, he was facing a tough race.

That’s been made doubly so by the more than $600,000 in attack ads financed by two Republican outside organizations, Americans for Job Security and the Commission on Hope, Growth & Opportunity, which have been operating across the campaign field for the past two months.

The end result: Salazar has slipped behind in some polls.

But Oliver dismissed the notion that the Salazar cavalry could be arriving too late. “There isn’t a bad time to get up on the air. There isn’t a bad time to put resources on the table because a lot of voters haven’t engaged until now,” she said. “This time period is one of the most important, and, besides, we always have been outspent.”