The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee outraised its GOP counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee in the month of October, according to disclosures by both parties.

The DCCC will report raising $3.8 million last month, compared to $3.4 million for the NRCC. That's about the same amount both committees pulled in at the same point in the 2007-08 cycle, despite the fact that the economy has soured significantly since then.

However, like the NRCC, the DCCC spent more than it took in -- $4 million total in disbursements. A big chunk of that went to the hotly contested Nov. 4 special election to replace Rep. John McHugh (R) in New York's 23rd district. The DCCC reported $1.1 million in independent expenditures, total, on the race, which its candidate, Bill Owens (D), narrowly won.

The DCCC still has more than three times the cash-on-hand as the NRCC, with $14.5 million in the bank, and $3.3 million in debt. The NRCC will report $4.2 million cash on hand and $2 million in debt.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee outraised its partisan counterpart in October -- but the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ended up with roughly twice as much cash in the bank.

The NRSC raised about $4 million and had about $5.9 million in cash on hand as of Oct. 30, according to fundraising reports set to be filed with the Federal Election Commission later this week.

The campaign arm of Senate Republicans also spent about $3.1 million last month with a substantial sum going toward updating the committee's direct mail programs.

The DSCC raised $3.7 million in October and spent $2.7 million. The committee had $11.3 million in the bank at the end of the month and $2 million in remaining debts from the 2008 cycle.

A former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee said Thursday that he is seeing a "momentum shift" away from Democrats ahead of the November 2010 elections but cautioned against making predictions of significant Republican gains more than a year before the balloting.

Former Virginia Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, who served in the House from 1995 through 2008 and now is president of the centrist Republican Main Street Partnership, told reporters that the first midterm election in a new presidential administration has almost always yielded seat gains in Congress to the party not controlling the White House.

Though Republicans still have poor approval ratings, they could make gains in a low-turnout 2010 election from voters who are uneasy with one-party rule in Washington. Democrats have advantages of 256-178 in the House and 59-40 in the Senate.

The left wing of congressional Democrats now has a political action committee to provide campaign funds to its members and like-minded candidates who will face competitive races in the 2010 elections.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC was established with the Federal Election Commission as "a vehicle for supporting the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and candidates who believe that, if elected, they'll become members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus," said Darcy Burner, who sits on the new PAC's board and works with the 83-member organization in her capacity as executive director of the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation.

In her competitive but losing campaigns in 2006 and 2008 to unseat Republican Rep. Dave Reichert of Washington state, Burner said she noticed there were fundraising vehicles available to Democratic candidates who promised to join the more conservative Blue Dog Coalition or New Democrat Coalition. (The Blue Dog PAC raised $2.6 million in the 2008 election cycle).

Eye on 2010 reported last month on the regularity with which Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter voted with Democratic leaders since he left the Republican Party in late April.

The Senate has cast a lot more votes in the past month, and Specter, who faces a serious challenge from his left flank in the Democratic primary, has been even more of a party loyalist.

Since Specter's party switch was noted in the Senate voting rolls on April 30, he's participated in 63 votes that have essentially divided the two parties and sided with the majority Democratic position on 57 of them, for a CQ-defined "party unity" score of 90.5 percent. Since the July Fourth recess, Specter sided with the consensus Democratic position on 40 of 43 party unity votes in which he participated, or 93 percent of the time.

The health care ad assault continues this week, led by a $1.2 million ad campaign launched by conservative anti-tax group Club for Growth.

The Club is targeting members of the House and Senate from four states whom it believes "may be persuaded to reject a government-run health insurance program" -- read, centrist Democrats, many with competitive contests on the horizon.

Those targeted include: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada; Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall of Colorado; Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas; and Byron L. Dorgan and Kent Conrad of North Dakota.

Democratic represenatives include Marion Berry, Vic Snyder and Mike Ross of Arkansas; Diana DeGette, Jared Polis, John Salazar, Betsy Markey and Ed Perlmutter of Colorado; and Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota.

The ads, which Club for Growth said will "run throughout the August recess," seeks to play up seniors' fear that the Democrats' proposed health care overhaul will lead to government intervention in end-of-life decisions, or as Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan less artfully put it last week, "government-encouraged euthanasia."

It's not as active as it once was, but the leadership PAC Barack Obama formed in 2005 donated $50,000 to Democratic committees in the first six months of this year.

Hopefund Inc., which a March document said was still sponsored by the president, gave $15,000 apiece to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Those are the campaign organizations that are working in the 2010 election to protect the party majorities that Obama needs to enact his legislative programs.

Both major parties' congressional campaign units make a practice of setting up joint fundraising committees. These operations share the contributions they receive between the national party organization and individual candidates who are up for election in the current cycle.

But a Democratic fundraiser held in June, from which the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) netted the lion's share of the proceeds, highlights the fact that having a joint committee usually does not mean a 50-50 split.

The event on June 15 event at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Chicago, was headlined by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a former House Democrat from Illinois. And it raised more than $600,000 for "Senate Victory 2010."

It's not uncommon for congressional chiefs of staff to try to succeed their bosses. Illinois Democrat Richard Boykin probably will try to do that.

Boykin, a former chief of staff to Democratic Rep. Danny K. Davis who is now a lawyer and lobbyist, is interested in succeeding his former boss in Ilinois' Chicago-centered 7th District should Davis follow through on plans to seek the presidency of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. Davis announced an exploratory committee on July 5.

"It's something that we'd seriously consider, should he make the announcement that he's running," Boykin told CQ Politics on Tuesday from Hawaii, where he is vacationing.

He may not have held an official announcement event yet, Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak has made it so abundantly clear he's challenging Sen. Arlen Specter in a 2010 Democratic primary that would-be successors in Sestak's 7th District are preparing campaigns.

A candidacy announcement came Thursday from Republican businessman Steven Welch, who promises that his run in the 7th District, a suburban Philadelphia constituency, will feature a "new style of campaigning that will focus on voter engagement and utilize cutting-edge technologies."

"I am running for Congress to ensure that we send people to Washington with a proven record of creating good jobs with good benefits, who have balanced the budget and met a bottom line," Welch said in a video statement on his campaign Web site, which includes several videos and links to Facebook and Twitter pages.