ICYMI: CLF’s Dan Conston Joins Ruthless to Discuss House Republicans’ Path to Victory

CLF President Dan Conston joined the Ruthless podcast to discuss the current state of play in the battle for the House Majority, outlining House Republicans clear path to victory, CLF’s fundraising success and strategic advertising, the weight of message in key races, and a closer look at the battleground map post-election.

Listen to the Ruthless Podcast here.

Conston on House Republicans clear path to victory: “We’re definitely on track to a majority… The AP has called 201 seats. In effect, there’s really 211 that are done for Republicans. Then we’ve got six ‘Lean Republican’ seats… That takes you to 217. Then there’s nine races that are just too close to call. To have the majority, we need to win one. So, we’re going to win the majority.”

Conston on CLF fundraising success: “In the six years I’ve run CLF and AAN, we have raised now $871 million… Just this cycle, we’re at $320 million or something. The truth is, we needed every last dollar.”

Conston on CLF carrying the message weight in key races: “Looking at the 20 overall biggest spending races – On average, we were over 50% of the share of voice for Republicans… We spent on 35-38 races. Turns out, it was exactly the races that are deciding this thing, and we’re winning more of them than they are.”

Conston on CLF’s efforts in GOP pickups: “A sort of white whale for House Republicans… Matt Cartwright. It was an $8 million dollar spend… And Susan Wild as well in PA-07, we were 72% of the share of overall Republican voice in PA-07… Obviously, Tom Barrett, big pickup.”

Conston on CLF’s strategic spending:  “A couple things we did different… we invested huge on the streaming side. The amount of lift in our polls that you get once we are heavy streaming, heavy TV – much different. We ended up doing quite a bit on the 15-second TV side. It would have cost us 29 million dollars more in New York, LA, Detroit if we hadn’t done a heavy rotation of 15-second spots.”

Conston breaks down the House battleground map: “The House is complex… And you’ve got a realignment going on in politics where every race used to just be in the suburbs of big cities. We’ve got plenty of those suburban districts, but we also have lots of opportunity, some we’ve won, some I think in the future we will win, in some of these Hispanic districts. We picked up some of the more white, working-class districts.”