WASHINGTON – Republican U.S. House candidate Tom McClintock said in an interview Tuesday evening that his campaign was prepared for heavy spending on the part of national Democrats in his race.

“We’re ready for them,” said McClintock. “Prudence requires planning. We have, and we’re ready.”

McClintock, a state senator from Southern California, is running against retired Air Force officer Charlie Brown in a conservative Northern California district that has been historically unfriendly to Democrats. But on Tuesday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee waded into similarly Republican trending districts in Kentucky and Maryland. And while the DCCC has yet to air advertisements in the 4th Congressional District, it has reserved time in the local media market.

“We’ve planned all along on the assumption that they would end up being in the district,” he said. “We’ve assumed that $1 million and as much as $2 million of DCCC money will enter this race.”

With a potential national Democratic-led airdrop on the horizon, McClintock said his campaign had raised $2.5 million during the course of the cycle.

While the cash-strapped National Republican Congressional Committee has yet to spend on his behalf, McClintock noted that the NRCC chairman, Tom Cole of Oklahoma, would be coming through the district next week to fundraise for him. Cole was present at a Washington fundraiser for McClintock on Tuesday.

Should the DCCC come into the district heavily, McClintock said, it wouldn’t be anything he hadn’t seen before. The state senator noted that he prevailed in a heated primary against Doug Ose, a wealthy businessman who spent millions of his own money in the race.

McClintock is widely viewed as the favorite heading into the final stretch of the campaign, though Brown’s campaign released an internal poll last week showing the Democrat with a 1-point edge. McClintock waved off the survey as inaccurate, saying the poll consisted of 37 percent Republican voters and 35 percent Democrats while the district actually gives the GOP a 16 percent registration edge.

 “I think (the campaign) is in very good order,” McClintock said.