The GOP has spent half a billion dollars on midterm House and Senate campaigns since Labor Day, but an analysis by the Washington Post, released this morning, shows all that spending has had virtually no effect.
The Post found “high-quality public surveys” showing that Democrats remain tied or ahead in some of the most competitive Senate races – which is exactly where they stood before the Republican spending spree. Meanwhile, the Democratic lead on the generic congressional ballot has increased by about three points, even though the party is being significantly outspent.
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“They should be getting more for what they’re spending, and they’re not,” Lauren French, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Senate Majority PAC, told the Post. “Can they spend their way out of a bad economy, a bad president, a bad candidate, and a bad message in Texas and Kansas?”
One anonymous spokesperson from the president’s political team told the Post that the party’s immense spending has merely “enabled us to stay competitive.” In September, NPR made a similar point, explaining that a large portion of Republican spending is defensive, adding that there is “serious cash” being used to “bail out candidates in places that supported Trump by notable margins in 2024.”