That's what happened with the campaign I volunteered for in PA-13. Allyson Schwartz had won the previous two elections by over 25 percent. She had a three million war chest that could have gone elsewhere in an easy race. Instead, she had to use it all to defend her seat.
And there is a good chance PA-13 will go bye-bye in redistricting anyway. That would be sweet justice indeed.
The PA Dem tv ad were all the same:
“So-and-So voted for the (free trade) bill to ship jobs overseas. Vote for me, I’ll creat jobs.”
I was worried it might work (that strategy had worked in the past two elections), thank goodness for the smarter voters in PA.
Call it strategy - call it logistics - whatever. But the NRCC “whack-a-mole” plan of spending money early in swing districts gave the appearance that those races were tightening up and ended up bringing a lot of seats into play that the Dems would not even have given a second thought to. Incumbents who usually had plenty of money to share with peers had to keep and spend it themselves.
Schwartz was one of those who had to hang on to her money because no one knew how far the wave was going to go. If it had gone up to 80, she may have been one of those who as swept away or who just barely survived.
Dems were playing catch up the last two months of the campaign and in many races, the die had been cast.