GOP Committees And Super PACs Hold $657 Million Cash Advantage Heading Into Midterms

The Numbers

Federal Election Commission filings through the end of June show the three main Republican national committees and their affiliated congressional super PACs holding a combined $657 million, according to Politico. Their Democratic counterparts held $334 million.

Add President Trump's MAGA Inc. super PAC, which reported more than $400 million on hand several weeks earlier, and the total Republican reserve runs to more than three times what Democratic Party committees and congressional super PACs can muster together.

At the committee level, the gap is stark. The Republican National Committee reported $128 million in cash on hand against $16 million for the Democratic National Committee, according to Politico's reporting cited by ZeroHedge.

On the super PAC side, the two principal GOP outside groups have raised $478 million between them: the Senate Leadership Fund with $254 million and the National Republican Congressional Committee with $200 million, according to Salon. Their Democratic counterparts, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, have raised a combined $338 million, $140 million and $198 million respectively.

Candidates Tell A Different Story

Individual candidates present a different picture. Democratic Senate candidates have collectively raised $574 million to Republicans' $336 million, according to Salon. On the House side, Democrats have raised $1 billion to the GOP's $800 million.

Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., leads all Senate fundraisers with nearly $98 million for his reelection bid. Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico has raised $69 million, former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown has raised $39 million, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has raised $35 million, and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., has raised $34 million.

The top-raising Senate Republican was Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., with $22 million. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, follows with a $19 million war chest.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., topped House fundraisers with $33 million in her campaign account, according to Salon. Other big names on the list are mostly party leaders: Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

Why Individual Fundraising Might Not Save Democrats

Brendan Glavin, director of insights at OpenSecrets, told Salon the Democratic candidate advantage is misleading once you look at the full picture. Significant portions of what candidates raised already went toward primary elections, meaning much of it won't be available for the general election.

Glavins said the party-level and outside-group deficits wipe out whatever edge Democratic candidates have built individually. In the most competitive House races specifically, GOP candidates have actually out-raised their Democratic opponents, according to Salon's reporting on OpenSecrets data.

The Supreme Court Changed The Rules

On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled in NRSC v. FEC that federal limits on coordinated party spending violate the First Amendment, overturning a 2001 precedent. National party committees can now spend without a ceiling in direct coordination with their candidates, instead of routing money through independent expenditures.

The ruling allows the party with the bigger committee war chest, currently the RNC by a $128 million to $16 million margin, to put that money directly behind specific candidates in specific races rather than through arm's-length outside groups.

The Democratic Worry

Morgan Jackson, a Democratic strategist advising Roy Cooper's Senate campaign in North Carolina, calls the spending imbalance the central threat to his party's chances this cycle. "What is putting the House majority and the Senate majority, nationally, in danger is the Republicans' massive stockpile of resources that they're putting together to push back," Jackson said, according to ZeroHedge's reporting on Politico.

Generic ballot polling and historical midterm patterns have favored the party out of the White House, and Democrats currently hold that position. Money can offset a favorable environment if it's spent well and spent early, particularly now that coordinated spending limits are gone. "If you get outspent five to six to eight to one, that can alleviate the environmental advantage that Democrats have this cycle," Jackson said.

Whether that fear proves out is an open question. Individual Democratic candidates in the most-watched Senate races are demonstrably outraising their opponents by wide margins, in some cases three or four to one. The unresolved issue is whether that candidate-level money advantage can survive a general election in which Republican committees, freed by the Supreme Court to coordinate spending directly with campaigns, deploy a war chest more than three times the size of what Democratic committees and super PACs hold combined.

What Comes Next

The next full round of FEC filings, covering the third quarter, will show whether Trump's MAGA Inc. has begun deploying its reported $400 million-plus, and whether Democratic committees have narrowed the cash gap since June. Neither side has disclosed a specific spending plan for the general election stretch as of this writing.