The third-quarter fundraising numbers that came in late last week give us one of the best glimpses we have this early on in the cycle: which candidates are putting together strong campaigns and which ones are lagging behind. It’s still early, but at this juncture, most major candidates have already announced. There are some retirement questions still lingering for incumbents, but in already open seats, messy primaries continue. The most vulnerable senators up in 2022 are building big war chests, and some challengers are too. Here are some of our thoughts and takeaways from this round of FEC reports:
Most endangered incumbents are banking cash
We currently rate four Democrats (Arizona’s Mark Kelly, Georgia’s Raphael Warnock, New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan and Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto) and two Republican incumbents (Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson and Florida’s Marco Rubio) as in competitive contests. Virtually all of them turned in impressive fundraising performances. At this juncture — especially for Democrats facing down a potentially historically poor political environment — making sure their campaign coffers are well flush is the best thing they can
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