(GunReports.com) — Writing at the American Prospect, Paul Waldman asserts that the NRA had a bad 2012 election season. In fact, he wrote, “they lost almost everywhere they tried to make a difference.”
Earlier this year, he did a lengthy series for Think Progress detailing how the National Rifle Association’s power to influence elections is overestimated. The group’s advocates argued that he was wrong, and in fact the NRA retains the ability to get its friends elected and defeat its enemies. So how did NRA do in this year’s election?
Waldman wrote, “The answer is, abysmally. The Sunlight Foundation put together data on outside spending from a variety of interest groups, and the data show how poorly the NRA did. At the top of the ticket, of course, they failed to defeat the man whom they have promised is coming to take everyone’s guns (despite the fact that he is not actually coming to take anyone’s guns). Through their two political committees, the Political Victory Fund and the Institute for Legislative Action, the NRA spent $13.4 million on the presidential race, to no avail. But the Senate is where their futility was really striking.
“There were eight Senate races—in Indiana, Ohio, Florida, Missouri, Wisconsin, Arizona, Virginia, and Maine—where the organization spent over $100,000. They lost seven of the eight. The only Senate winner to whom the NRA gave significant money was Jeff Flake of Arizona….”
“And that was their best result of the night. Everywhere else, the NRA found defeat,” Waldman wrote.
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