“Republicans Enter Final Midterm Stretch With a Significant Financial Edge.” “Republicans Are Unleashing Their Fundraising Advantage Against the Democrats.” “Republicans’ One Clear Advantage This November: Money.” These headlines are like others that blared in major publications just three weeks ago, as Republican Senate candidates and their allied party organizations and political action committees opened up a 2-to-1 margin over Democrats in early September advertising spending, and booked $221 million more than Democrats in ad buys through the rest of the campaign.
But as most Americans find a dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to, Republican ad buyers are learning the hard way that millions in dark money funneled to super PACs don’t go as far as money sent directly to candidates.
Money is rarely the sole factor in determining election outcomes. Democrats spent more on Senate campaigns in 2024 and still lost the chamber. But if Republicans hope to hold off a Blue Wave in a midterm when their president’s job approval is cratering, money is their best bet.
Yet we already knew from Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter that both Democratic and Republican operatives have found that in most races “attack ads against Democrats were not yet ‘moving the needle.’” Part of the reason is that Republicans are selling a bad product, no matter how much money is put into marketing. Voters don’t want to buy more Republican policies that have eaten away at their bank accounts. And when they’re mad about their thinning wallets, as I wrote previously, they are not easily riled up by appeals to transphobia and Islamophobia.
But another factor is that, despite their massive war chest, Republicans aren’t dominating the airwaves.
Last Thursday, the ad tracking company AdImpact tallied up not just what the two parties spent on Senate campaigns in nine battlegrounds through the end of September, but how much actual advertising that money bought. Republicans outspent Democrats $563 million to $375 million, a 60-40 split. But when it came to how often broadcast ads air, the Republican advantage nearly vanished. AdImpact found that “Republicans led broadcast spending in seven of the nine battlegrounds and by 26% overall but led broadcast airings by just 7%. In Texas, a 44% Republican broadcast spending advantage yielded only an 8% airings advantage. Democrats led broadcast airings in Ohio and North Carolina despite being outspent on broadcast in both states.”
Why aren’t Republican dollars going as far as Democratic dollars? Because the individual Democratic candidates are attracting more campaign cash than their Republican opponents. In turn, Republicans largely rely on political action committees, which function independently of the candidates, to carry the campaign load. Under federal communications law, in the 60 days before a general election, “the charges made for the use of any broadcasting station by … a legally qualified candidate” will be “the lowest unit charge of the station.”
Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a rule stretching the definition of “legally qualified candidate” to include political parties “political parties engaged in coordinated political activity” and joint fundraising committees—in which candidates and other entities, typically party committees, fundraise together. While the FCC rule is being litigated, the Supreme Court issued a stay last month allowing the rule to remain in effect for this election. Three months earlier, the Court lifted limits on spending by joint fundraising committees, creating a new pipeline for mega-donors to fund candidates directly.
Yet the web of the Republican-affiliated campaign operations is still dominated by super PACs that can’t legally coordinate with candidates such as MAGA, Inc., Senate Leadership Fund and Congressional Leadership Fund—aligned respectively with associates of Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. Democrats have long been terrified of being drowned out by super PACs, as these entities lack limits on how much money they can raise and spend. But since they don’t get the cheapest rates from broadcast outlets, super PAC dollars don’t go as far.
The three states noted above—North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas—where Democrats have done the best job eliminating or mitigating the Republican money advantage, feature candidates who have been able to pay for most of their ads out of their own campaign bank accounts.
The state where Republicans enjoy the biggest disparity in broadcast ad airings, New Hampshire, has yet to pay off in improved poll numbers. Ads on behalf of Republican John Sununu, a former U.S. Senator, have aired nearly twice of much as those for Democratic nominee Chris Pappas. But Pappas has held leads between five and eight points in polls sampled over the latter half of September. Perhaps because Pappas currently represents half of the state in the U.S. House, he is a familiar enough figure to be inoculated from Republican attacks.
One Democratic Senate candidate that may be getting drowned out is Troy Jackson in Maine. Last week, I observed that Jackson’s favorability scores in recent polling have been underwater after a blitz of attack ads. AdImpact’s numbers shed further light on Jackson’s predicament. Maine is a Senate race in which 61 percent of the ad spending is Republican and 61 percent of the broadcast airtime is Republican. Jackson own campaign coffers aren’t deep enough to minimize his reliance on PACs and stretch his dollars. Plus, Jackson has a record serving in the state legislative majority that can be disingenuously mined, but has never represented more than his northern rural district and so lacks the broad familiarity that Pappas enjoys. Add to that Susan Collins’s reputation for bringing home the earmark bacon, and you can see why Democrats are having a tough time getting out their preferred message about Collins’s track record of cozying up to Trump.
For House elections, AdImpact has not published an analysis of ad airings, but did share September ad spending numbers. The partisan difference was negligible, with Republicans spending $172.5 million and Democrats spending $156.8 million. With that slight 52-48 percent GOP advantage in House ad spending, Democrats may well have ended up with more House broadcast ad airings. And even if they didn’t, they at least were not drowned out.
Of course, with less than a month left to go before Election Day, the final ad spending and airing numbers may still shift. Neither party’s donors nor fundraisers can be complacent. But much of the panic consuming Democrats over the past year—remember the freakout over the Democratic National Committee being in debt?—has proven to be unfounded. The DNC was never the only, let alone primary, source of campaign cash. What has allowed Democrats to expand the map and put both chambers of Congress in play is a strong field of recruits who can raise their own campaign cash and rely less on super PACs.
Case in point: The Republican Senate nominee from Texas, Ken Paxton, was recently caught on audio at a private fundraising event admitting, “I’ve never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign and, like, what issues are going to matter because it’s all coming—you know—from D.C.” His Democratic opponent, James Talarico, who through June had outraised Paxton $68.5 million to $9.2 million, hasn’t had that problem.
