After Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) blew more than $150 million of what the National Republican Senatorial Committee had brought in for the 2022 cycle on who knows what, Republican senate candidates have turned to where Republicans always turn—the dark side. They’ve been on the receiving end of nearly $1 billion in unaccountable money, the stuff of millionaires and billionaires who won’t disclose their identities, according to analysis from National Public Radio.
It’s accounted for 86% of the funding for GOP television ads. It’s the majority chunk for Democrats, as well, at 55%, but Republicans would have been virtually blacked out of the ads war this cycle if not for being bailed out by the millionaires and billionaires and PACs. NPR points out a critical factor here that helps Democrats—the campaigns themselves get much better ad rates than the PACs, so the same amount of money raised by campaigns from grassroots donors versus a PAC buys a ton more air time.
This continues to give Democrats—who are getting help from real grassroots small donors and have actual people support—an edge, but it’s still going to be a tough slog against the slime for the next few weeks.
Individual Republican campaigns haven’t been able to compete with Democrats’ campaigns, thanks in part to Scott’s disaster at the NRSC, hence the reliance on the PACs. The biggest spender is the Mitch McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund, with $219 million spent across eight states and $110 million going to Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Those are among the states with the Trump and Scott-endorsed candidates, where McConnell complained about “candidate quality” issues.
Total expenditures—all the stuff of campaigns besides paid media—by outside groups for this cycle in just the Senate races, according to Open Secrets, is more than $1.3 billion, with a few weeks left to go in the cycle. That’s a midterm election record.
But Open Secrets is projecting that total spending for congressional races—House and Senate—is going to exceed $9.3 billion. Billion. “We’re seeing much more money, more candidates, and more political division than we did in 2018,” said OpenSecrets Executive Director Sheila Krumholz. “Spending is surging across the board this midterm cycle, fueling a polarization vortex that shows no signs of slowing.”
Democrats are still heading into the last weeks with more money, according to Open Secretes, with “$1.3 billion combined on hand compared to $1.1 billion in the coffers of Republican candidates, committees and outside groups.” Again, campaigns that have that money on hand will have better ad rates—for whatever air time is left—than what Republicans can get with dark money. Individual Democratic candidates and party committees have outraged their Republican counterparts, but it’s the outside groups where the GOP is leading.
Coming down the stretch, the Daily Kos-endorsed Senate candidates can still make good use of whatever funds—and GOTV time!—you have to spare. If you want to help keep the Senate blue, then please donate to Democrats Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, and Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin.
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