by Emma Baccellieri on July 8, 2016
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), chair of the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has received 92.6 percent of his campaign funds from out of state: (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Home may be where the heart is, but for a growing number of congressional campaigns, it's not the best place to round up cash.
In a political environment that increasingly emphasizes the national over the local, more and more members of Congress are depending on out-of-state contributions -- with some bringing in nearly all of their money from outside the area they represent. In 2012, there were 16 senators and House members who received more than 75 percent of their contributions from out of state. That figure has nearly doubled so far in 2016, to 31.
And while no congressional campaign in recent years has received more than 90 percent of its contributions from out of state, there are currently five on track to do so.
This move away from depending on local money aligns with a broader shift that has seen many campaigns choose to focus more heavily on emphasizing a national profile, said Adam Bonica, a professor of political science at Stanford University.
"Elections are becoming much more nationalized... politics is a little less local in this respect now," Bonica said. "You can find a constituency of donors more easily than ever before, focusing more on broader national level policies than on bringing pork back to your district."
A changing political media environment, which has made it easier for members to stand out on the national stage, is one possible factor. Another is Congress' 2011 ban on earmarks, Bonica said, which prohibited members from routing federal dollars to pet projects in their home districts. Campaigns can no longer boast as easily as they once could about the big bucks they have brought to their state.
Most of those pulling in the largest shares of out-of-state money are incumbent senators, led by Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Of the $2.4 million his campaign has raised so far this cycle, nearly 93 percent has come from out of state. With securities and investment as the industry giving the most to his campaign (and well aware of things like committee oversight of the financial sector), he has pulled most heavily from New York -- more than $500,000, which is triple what he has raised back home in the Heart of Dixie.
Just two of the 10 lawmakers with the highest shares of out-of-state cash are House members: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who has brought in more than 91 percent of his contributions from outside Wisconsin, and -- ahead of Ryan -- Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), with 92.6 percent of his money coming from states other than Utah.
Bishop, who represents northern Utah, lacks the comparatively high profiles of Ryan and the senators who surround him at the top of the list. Though he was first elected to Congress in 2002, this giving pattern is somewhat new for him -- in each of his elections up until the past two cycles, he received half of his contributions or more from within Utah's boundaries. That began to tip slightly in 2012, when he received 55 percent of his money from other states, and more so in 2014, when that figure moved to 66 percent. Now he has jumped to the top of the leaderboard, with more than 90 percent of his campaign contributions coming from outside Utah and 99 percent coming from outside his home district.
What changed? Here's one thing: Just after being re-elected in 2014, Bishop was appointed chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources. This cycle so far, he has received more from the energy and natural resources sector, $165,000, than he did in the entire 2014 cycle, $150,500. In addition, contributions from agribusiness have more than doubled, from $26,600 in all of the 2014 campaign to $71,500 in the first 15 months of the current go-round. Oil and gas (a component of the energy sector) has been Bishop's most generous industry since 2010, and this cycle it, too, has been more giving than ever, providing him with $109,000 so far -- equal to what it donated to him in the whole 2014 campaign.
Bishop's campaign manager, Andy Pierucci, declined to comment on the changes or on fundraising strategy.