Campaign donations for the Georgia special election were as follows.
After losing the most expensive House race ever, in which he had the largest war chest, he opined as follows.
The role of money in politics is a major problem and particularly the role of unchecked anonymous money…. Well, the overwhelming majority of money spent supporting my opponent has come from super PACs in Washington. And the overwhelming amount of money that’s been spent supporting my candidacy has come from small-dollar donors. But there’s no question that money in politics is a major problem, which is one of the reasons that we need campaign finance reform so that candidates and campaigns will spend more time talking to voters and discussing the issues and less time raising money.
The above linked article notes the following.
For example, by the end of May, your opponent, Congresswoman-elect Handel, had spent $3.2M. You, Jon, on the other hand, had spent $22.5M. And then there’s all of that big “out of state PAC” money which Handel was getting. Of the roughly $13M she managed to take in, it was lumped into the category of “super PAC and party committee cash.” Sure, there was some PAC activity on her side just like yours, but NBC reports that the significant majority came from only two sources… the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Congressional Leadership Fund. These aren’t exactly nameless, faceless non-profits popping up in some warehouse owned by George Soros.
With all due respect, Mr. Ossoff, you just lost the most expensive House race the country has ever seen. And you gladly took in and slathered cash all over the landscape in an effort to win it. There’s no dishonor in losing a hard fought campaign, but calling for campaign finance reform on the final day of that spending spree is a bit much even by the standards of lifelong Washington insiders.