WASHINGTON — Gun control groups say this is the year they finally go toe-to-toe with the National Rifle Association and match their foe’s imposing campaign spending for congressional candidates.
Their long-awaited financial parity with the gun lobby, however, underscores the importance of timing in politics.
Firearms violence has faded as a top-tier public concern, a turnabout from the issue’s high profile immediately after the December 2012 massacre of 20 first-graders and six adult staff mem-bers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
The subject barely registers in polling that shows voters far more focused on the economy and terrorism. This week’s Associated Press-GfK poll showed that less than 1 percent of likely voters named guns as the nation’s top issue — a view many House and Senate contests reflect.
“I can’t think of one race where the gun issue has been prominent in any way,” said Democratic pollster John Anzalone, who’s involved in two dozen campaigns.
That isn’t stopping each side in the gun debate from planning to pump tens of millions of dollars into this fall’s races. There are many close contests, particularly for seats in a Senate that both parties hope to control next year.
“It’s an important issue to segments of voters on both sides (of the gun issue),” said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster. “You don’t need to make a huge difference; you just need to make a little difference because these races are all so close.”
Few doubt that organizations led by billionaire Michael Bloomberg and the wounded former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., will unleash huge sums in the campaigns’ closing weeks to back candidates favoring firearms curbs. They’re off to modest starts — unlike the NRA.
A month from Election Day, the nation’s most powerful gun rights group has so far reported spending more than $10 million for ads and other efforts either for or against more than 60 congressional candidates.
That spending, which is supposed to be done independently and not coordinated with candidates, makes the NRA the ninth-highest spender of more than 300 groups tracked by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors political spending.
Virtually all NRA spending has been to help Republicans. As of Aug. 31, it reported having $18.5 million banked and was still raising money.
NRA expenditures include more than 1 million in each of five states, including Colorado, to help GOP hopefuls capture Senate seats held by Democrats.
The NRA’s early spending advantage could be short-lived.
Bloomberg has pledged to spend $50 million this year to advance his gun control goals. Some of that is to support his Everytown for Gun Safety, which is focusing largely on state contests, including backing a Washington state ballot initiative to require background checks for private sales of firearms.
Americans for Responsible Solutions, headed by Giffords and husband Mark Kelly, has said it will at least match the $20 million the NRA spent during the entire 2012 campaign, which included a presidential race.
