As the fight to control the U.S. Senate intensifies, the Democratic National Committee finds it has a money problem -- as in, not enough of it.
The DNC is now $2.2 million in debt.
The committee that Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz chairs disclosed last week it spent $5.25 million in the past month but only brought in $4.45 million in contributions.
It ended the reporting period with just $4.7 million in cash on hand. Compare that to the $6.9 million in debts it owes. Including a $2 million loan from union-owned Amalgamated Bank, the debt grew this month from the $6.7 million it reported in October.
Breitbart.com reports the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is struggling with a $13 million debt load.
"The 2014 elections didn’t just wipe out the Democrat majority in the Senate," said the news service. "The election saddled the party committee with heavy debt, borrowed to defend its precarious majority in the GOP landslide last year."
Breitbart points out the Democrats "have little hope of winning back the House, at least until another round of redistricting next decade." Nevertheless, the electoral battlefield is tilted against Senate Republicans this year, leaving the Dems with high hopes of eking out a majority in the upper chamber.
Republicans are defending 24 seats next year, several in presidential battleground states. Democrats are defending just 10, only one or two of which seem competitive early on.
Insiders say the DNC's spending troubles are increasing pressure on Wasserman Schultz. DWS has taken heat from a few of her fellow DNC co-chairs in recent months.
In mid-October, as reported by the New York Times and virtually every news source covering Capitol Hill, DNC Vice Chairman R.T. Rybak accused Wasserman Schultz of lying when she said she consulted with DNC members about the party's presidential debate schedule. Rybak said in an HNGN.com story he was close to calling for the resignation of Wasserman Schultz -- who originally won the chairmanship partially for her effective fund-raising -- because she doesn't have the political skills to lead the party.
HNGN reported in September Rybak and DNC Vice Chair Rep. Tulsi Gabbard jointly called on Schultz to schedule more debates, as did Democratic candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley. They suggested Wasserman Schultz was blatantly attempting to limit the debates to help Hillary Clinton avoid tough questions that could derail her campaign.
"When Gabbard repeated her call for more debates in October on MSNBC, Wasserman Schultz disinvited her from the first debate in Las Vegas, saying she was distracting from the candidates, according to Gabbard. Wasserman Schultz then made the claim that she had indeed consulted with the party's officers before scheduling the debates."
Meanwhile, adding to DWS' woes, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was quick to issue a press release saying the RNC came out on top in fundraising again this month by raising $8.65 million. Unlike the DNC, he said, it spent less than it raised and grew its cash stockpile to just over $20 million.
The cash advantage gives Republicans a “decisive advantage over the Democrat National Committee in preparing to win” in 2016, Priebus said.
“Our team is hard at work training, recruiting, and registering volunteers and voters in every community and every battleground state," he boasted. "The RNC is the only organization on either side of the aisle currently running a full-scale general election field operation.”
Wasserman Schultz was unavailable over the holiday to reply to Priebus' statement.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith.
