Campaign Money Pours In

With record-setting amounts of money invested in the fight to control Congress, President Bush and candidates around the country engaged in frenetic last-minute politicking on Monday, ending a tense but largely themeless campaign.

The two major political parties are on track to raise at least $500 million in largely unregulated donations from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals -- the “soft money” financing that will be banned after election day. That will break the record set in the 2000 election, when Congress and the presidency were on the ballot.

“The money in this year’s races is making this election another one for the record books,” said Steve Weiss, an analyst with the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

With so much money and power at stake, candidates Monday made their closing pitches for support: Republicans mostly wrapped themselves in the mantle of Bush’s popularity while many Democrats -- especially those in conservative states -- sold themselves as independents.

“This is a race about which one of us is going to be an independent senator in Washington,” said Jeanne Shaheen, the Democratic governor of New Hampshire, who is running for an open Senate seat against Republican Rep. John E. Sununu.

Bush continued to hopscotch across the country to campaign for Republican candidates. Like other leaders in both parties, he focused on rousing people to cast their ballots in an election whose lack of focus on a compelling issue seems to have left many voters cold.

“These elections -- they’re kind of tight,” Bush said in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “A tight election means you can have a tremendous influence on who wins.”

The suspense in today’s congressional elections centers on relatively few races. Although all 435 House seats are on the ballot, analysts rate no more than 20 as up for grabs. Of the 34 Senate seats at stake, roughly eight are viewed as competitive.

But with each chamber so narrowly divided -- the GOP controls the House by six seats, the Democratic majority in the Senate is one -- the outcomes of these close races could reshape Capitol Hill’s balance of power.

Most experts expected the Republicans to hold on to the House. The analysts also gave Democrats a slight edge in the fight for control of the Senate, though these predictions were less firm.

In California, as in many states, there is little doubt about the winners in congressional elections. Neither of the state’s Democratic senators, Barbara Boxer or Dianne Feinstein, is up for reelection. And the results of all but one of the state’s 53 House elections are considered preordained.

The one exception is the fight to succeed Rep. Gary A. Condit (D-Ceres); the contest between Democratic state Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza and Republican state Sen. Dick Monteith is competitive, although Cardoza is favored to win.

Precise figures on how much money will be spent on House and Senate campaigns nationally will not be available until after election day. But it is clear that the parties are engaging in a last-call binge on soft money -- even though donors are expected to find loopholes to continue channeling big money into politics after the campaign finance reform law enacted takes effect on Wednesday.

As of Oct. 16, the GOP had raised $221.7 million in soft-money contributions and Democrats $199.6 million, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data by the Center for Responsive Politics. Based on fund-raising trends, the center expects the final soft-money figures for this campaign to surpass the $500-million record in the 2000 election.

Candidates’ spending of the donations known as “hard money,” which are limited, also set a record in House races: The $391 million spent through Oct. 16 is up from the record of $298 million in 1996.

As of Oct.16, Senate candidates had spent $226 million -- down from the $296 million spent in 2000, when Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton alone spent a record $92 million on her successful New York Senate race.

A list of this year’s top spending races is like a field guide to the year’s closest contests. The most has been spent in North Carolina, where the $23-million fight between Republican Elizabeth Hanford Dole and Democrat Erskine Bowles has tightened. For months, Dole enjoyed a large lead in the polls.

Next in fund-raising -- topping $18 million -- is Minnesota, which until late last month was a hard-fought contest between Republican Norm Coleman and Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.). After the plane crash that killed Wellstone, former Vice President Walter F. Mondale stepped in as the Democratic candidate.

Another barometer of election hot spots has been Bush’s extensive travel schedule. He traveled extensively throughout the year and campaigned virtually nonstop in recent days, touting GOP candidates in hopes of achieving more support in Congress for his program of more tax cuts, more defense spending and more conservative judges.

He twice traveled to South Dakota within the last week, where GOP Rep. John R. Thune is hoping to unseat Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson.

Bush ended up in his home state of Texas -- where he will cast his ballot today -- after campaign stops Monday in Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas.

In Iowa, where GOP Rep. James A. Leach is battling for reelection in a newly drawn district in eastern Iowa, Bush lavished praise on the incumbent. “He’s a breath of fresh air in Washington D.C.,” Bush said. “He’s so honest he squeaks. An independent thinker.”

Leach, in fact, was one of only a handful of congressional Republicans who last month voted against the resolution granting Bush authority to use military force against Iraq.

With Republicans favored to hold the House, the key question appeared to be whether Bush’s campaigning can help the GOP take control of the Senate, where Democratic leaders have proved to be the most stubborn obstacle to the administration’s agenda.

That took Bush to Missouri, where former GOP Rep. Jim Talent is vying to defeat Sen. Jean Carnahan of Missouri, one of the Democrats’ most vulnerable incumbents.

The president also campaigned for Sen. Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas, widely seen as the GOP incumbent most likely to lose.

Hutchinson, a social conservative, divorced his wife and married a staff member after winning his first term in 1996. That has hurt him among his base of support.

To shore him up, the National Republican Senatorial Committee on Monday paid for a last-minute ad raising questions about whether his Democratic opponent -- state Atty. Gen. Mark Pryor -- failed to pay Social Security taxes on wages paid to a household employee.

Pryor has proved to be a strong candidate in part because he has portrayed himself as a centrist who shies away from traditional party ties.

This pattern has been followed by Democrats in other states where Bush is popular. New Hampshire is an example.

While Sununu on Friday welcomed Bush -- and appeared at a Monday rally with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York -- Shaheen has not invited well-known national Democrats to campaign for her.

On Monday, she campaigned alone and at every stop emphasized her independence and commitment to bipartisanship.

In a low-key speech to employees at a Merrimack company that manufactures solar energy equipment, Shaheen spoke of reaching across party lines as governor. “I’ve worked with Republicans and Democrats and independents in Concord,” she said.

Asked by a local reporter in Merrimack about Bush’s appearances for Sununu, Shaheen praised the president’s handling of the war against terrorism and his policy toward Iraq. Then she contrasted what she called her record of independence against Sununu’s record of “voting with his party over 90% of the time.”

A series of polls released Sunday and Monday showed the race between the two essentially a dead heat.

Sununu and Shaheen, like Senate candidates in several other states -- were bracing for a long night Tuesday -- and barraging supporters with the message that turnout efforts could determine the race.

Indeed, there is growing concern that election day may be reminiscent of the disputed 2000 presidential election.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Most expensive senate races

Spending totals through Oct. 16. Amounts include money spent in primaries.

1. North Carolina: Open seat; Elizabeth Hanford Dole (R) vs. Erskine Bowles (D) -- $22,964,746

2. Minnesota: * Open seat; Walter F. Mondale (D) vs. Norm Coleman (R) -- $17,966,283

3. Georgia: Sen. Max Cleland (D) vs. Rep. Saxby Chambliss (R) -- $16,753,371

4. Texas: Open seat; John Cornyn (R) vs. Ron Kirk (D) -- $15,827,637

5. New Jersey: ** Open seat; Frank Lautenberg (D) vs. Doug Forrester (R) -- $13,951,892

6. Missouri: Sen. Jean Carnahan (D) vs. Jim Talent (R) -- $13,672,900

7. Iowa: Sen. Tom Harkin (D) vs. Rep. Greg Ganske (R) -- $11,618,631

8. South Dakota: Sen. Tim Johnson (D) vs. Rep. John Thune (R) -- $10,803,948

9. New Hampshire: Open seat; Rep. John Sununu (R) vs. Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D) -- $10,311,337

10. Louisiana: Sen. Mary Landrieu (R) vs. several candidates, including three Republicans. -- $9,176,644

*Mondale selected as Democratic nominee after Sen. Paul Wellstone (D) died in a plane crash on Oct. 25.

** Lautenberg selected as Democratic nominee after Sen. Robert Torricelli (D) withdrew from the race on Sept. 30.

Source: Center for Responsive Politics.

More details on campaign spending are available at www.opensecrets.org

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Times staff writer Ronald Brownstein, reporting from Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.