Quick $ analysis of 2012 AZ Congressional races

It has to be quick - it only includes net operating expenditures from candidates' principal committees.  I searched the FEC's website for a while, but could not find a way to filter independent expenditure reports by particular candidate, race, or even state.  Could have gone through every IE report filed this year, but that would take more time than is available on a Sunday afternoon.

There was a *lot* of IE money expended during the 2012 elections.

The sources of information:

Arizona Secretary of State's Official Election Canvass of Results
Post-General Election campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission

Further caveats:  The "net operating expenditures" number is from the applicable candidate's final 2012 campaign finance filing; it includes funds expended during the primary election, if any.  Since I could not think of a way to separate funds that only affected the primary vote, all expenditures were included, not just monies spent during the general election part of the cycle.

In addition, some candidates faced a "real" primary (viable opposition) while facing a walkover in the general, some faced the opposite combination, some neither, and one race, CD9, had both competitive primaries (D and R) and a competitive general election.

Candidate	CD	Net Operating Expenditures		Gen. Election Votes		$/gen elect vote
Kirkpatrick  - W	1	2313080.23		122774		18.840
Paton	1	1390118.16		113594		12.238
Barber - W	2	1254521.72		147338		8.515
McSally	2	1342020.03		144884		9.263
Grijalva - W	3	934605.93		98468		9.491
Gosar - W	4	1089090.06		162907		6.685
Salmon - W	5	1049982.19		183470		5.723
Schweikert - W	6	1668447.82		179706		9.284
Pastor - W	7	637532.76		104489		6.101
Franks - W	8	386233.88		172809		2.235
Parker	9	1062250.42		111630		9.516
Sinema - W	9	2024619.87		121881		16.611
Flake - W	Sen	9133038.17		1104457		8.269
Carmona	Sen	6016542.06		1036542		5.804

W = Won race


Of these, the following had

- a competitive primary and an uncompetitive general - CDs 4 (R), 5 (R), 6 (R)

- an uncompetitive primary and an uncompetive general - CDs 3 (D), 7 (D), 8 (R)

- an uncompetitive primary and a competitive general - CDs 1 (D), 2 (D and R), US Sen (D)

- a competitive primary and a competitive general - CD 9 (D and R), 1 (R), US Sen (R)

Note: "competitive" and "uncompetitive" are not synonyms for "contested" and "uncontested".  In many cases, in the primary, the general, or both, there were other candidates on the ballot, but their likelihoods of winning fell into the "snowball's chance in Phoenix...in August" category.  Not a commentary on the character of the "minor" candidates, just an assessment of their electability.

I would have expected that there would be a correlation between competitive races and $/vote, there doesn't seem to be one. 

For example, Trent Franks (R) spent the lowest amount per vote, and his race was all but completely uncontested, with only token opposition in both the primary and the general.

On the other hand, Ann Kirkpatrick (D) spent the most money per vote, and while she had a competitive general election race against Jonathan Paton (R), she had a practically noncompetitive race (Wenona Benally Baldenegro).

There might be a way to show a correlation between money spent and votes earned, but other factors would have to be part of the formula - some combination of partisan voter registrations, partisan advantage/disadvantage, some way to account for the influence of primary election expenditures on the general election (and make no mistake, there is such an influence), and, of course, Independent Expenditures.

I can find some of the info (voter reg stuff), but does anybody have any ideas on how to find and work with the other data?