The bigger spender tends to win in politics, but a recent exception to this money-in-politics rule could come this week in a Democratic primary race featuring two longtime allies from New York City — Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler. Maloney has raised $4 million and spent $2.9 million in the current election cycle, ahead of Nadler’s fundraising haul of $1.9 million and his outlay of $1.4 million, according to their filings with the Federal Election Commission as of Aug. 3.
But the latest polling suggests a victory for Nadler in Tuesday’s Democratic primary contest for New York’s newly redrawn 12th Congressional District. He scores 43% support among the heavily blue district’s voters vs. 24% for Maloney and 14% for another candidate, Suraj Patel, according an Emerson College Polling/Pix11/The Hill survey released on Thursday. Nadler, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, is likely benefiting from endorsements from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the New York Times. Still, turnout could be shaky for the contest, with many voters taking summer vacations, and 19% of respondents to the Emerson poll said they were undecided. Longtime allies Maloney and Nadler, both first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992, are facing off because their New York City districts were combined in new redistricting maps drawn by a court-appointed official. That official got involved after New York state’s highest court ruled that other maps created by Democrats were unconstitutional and failed to follow an anti-gerrymandering process. In her campaigning, Maloney, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, has emphasized the importance of responding to the Supreme Court’s June decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to an abortion. “Being at the forefront of wom …