Dem
47
GOP
53
There was a time, not too long ago, when fundraising was a somewhat useful proxy for polling. If a candidate, or party, raised more money, they likely had more momentum/enthusiasm behind them, and they had a better chance of victory.
Things are much more... murky these days. We've written about this a fair bit, but let's run down some of the main reasons in one place:
Citizens United: There's a lot of dark money in politics these days, and it's hard to find/keep track of it all. And even when the money trail is visible, it's kept in a separate "box" from donations given directly to political candidates. That probably makes sense with a PAC like Fairshake, which is a big pro-crypto PAC, and tries to support sleazeballs from both parties. However, a donation to Emily's List is basically a donation to the Democrats. A donation to Turning Point USA is basically a donation to the Republicans. But those donations are not treated as such, which surely skews the money picture.
The Grifter-in-Chief: On a related note, Donald Trump has all kinds of grifts going on that are not counted as "political donations." To take a very recent example, European steelmaker ArcelorMittal has just announced that it will generously donate the steel that will be used to rebuild the White House. Undoubtedly, there are no strings at all attached to that donation, and ArcelorMittal would never dream of asking Trump for special treatment when it comes time to calculate steel tariffs. In any event, all of that money that is flowing to Trump—either his own pockets, or those of his PACs—is NOT flowing to the Republicans who are actually up for election this year. Do these business and other concerns continue to donate to non-Trump Republicans at the same clip? Or do they have a "politics" budget for the year, and once they've decided it's better to spend it on buttering up Trump, do they close the vault? We do not know, but we think it is probable that Trump is soaking up at least some money that would otherwise go to 2026 candidates. Certainly, the under-the-table nature of it all also serves to obscure the money picture.
Those Were the Days: It used to be that the two national party organs, the RNC and the DNC, were THE hub for donations. You wanted to see the Republicans do well? Then you sent a nice check to the RNC, and trusted they would know the best way to spend that money.
There has been much attention paid this cycle to the fact that the RNC is swimming in cash, while the DNC is drowning in debt. We even wrote an item about it earlier this week; the RNC's balance sheet is about $100 million in the black, while the DNC's balance sheet is about $2 million in the red. That obviously sounds pretty bad for the blue team.
However—and this is just our intuition; we don't have any hard data to back this up—we suspect that the national party finances are not especially instructive anymore. We would guess that Republican voters, being members of the more traditional and conservative party, not to mention the party where voters are older, are more likely to do their donating the "old way" and to send their checks to the national organ. We would guess that Democratic voters, many of whom are furious with the DNC for various reasons, are more likely to choose alternate paths for their political donations.All Politics Is... National?: Following on that, if you were in Wyoming in, say, 1980, it wasn't so easy to follow the Senate race in, say, North Carolina, or to send money to a Tar Heel State candidate you wanted to support. These days, it's easy to follow elections from thousands of miles away and—particularly if you're a Democrat and you use ActBlue, the Party's online fundraising platform—it's trivially simple to send money to favored candidates in faraway places.
The problem here, when it comes to using donations as a predictive tool, is that big financial hauls can give a false impression of how strong a candidate really is. If you are a Democrat in Wyoming today, and you want to invest some money in promoting your political party, it is far wiser to send it to Texas than to spend it at home. But, of course, you won't actually be able to vote in Texas. James Talarico (D) has just reported that he raised a staggering $27.1 milion in Q1. But the "money from all 50 states" problem makes it hard to know exactly what that presages for the general election.Smart Money: The old saying advises, "Work smarter, not harder." Well, the modern-day political equivalent could be "Spend smarter, not larger." Of course a candidate or party or group would rather have more money than less. However, having way more money is not the mega-advantage it used to be, given that candidates who know how to use free and cheap alternatives (like eX-Twitter) effectively can cancel out the impact of expensive things like TV ads. The standard case study, at least of recent vintage, is the 2020 Maine Senate election, where Democrat Sara Gideon was awash in cash, and spent it all, and still lost to Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) by more than 8 points (despite the polls saying it would be a barnburner). For an example from this cycle, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and his good friends at the NRSC are outspending crooked AG Ken Paxton (R) something like 6-to-1, and yet Paxton is leading in nearly every poll, sometimes by double digits.
Asymmetric Warfare: Even if the two parties' balance sheets are similar, the tasks before them are definitely not. The RNC has more money on hand than the DNC. So too does the Republicans' Senate Leadership Fund, which has $166 million in the bank as compared to $75 million for the Democrats' Senate Majority PAC. However, the Republicans have to defend a much larger number of seats in 2026, thanks in part to the map just working out that way and thanks in part to the national environment. Texas is the poster state for this; the various GOP PACs have already spent nine figures to try to get Cornyn past Paxton. And they will have to spend a similar amount in the general (if Cornyn makes it) to try to get him past Talarico. And all that money will have been spent... just to try to maintain the status quo.
All of this is prelude to this note: We don't want to read too much into the Q1 numbers, which were due to the FEC last week, because the financial crystal ball is so murky. However, there are three assertions where we think we are on solid footing:
The Democrats Are Not in Trouble: In Q1, ActBlue brought in a total of $568 million. That is a record for Q1 of a midterm election year. It could be that the GOP is in a slightly better financial position, overall, and it could be that the Democrats are in a slightly better position, overall—we don't know, for the reasons outlined above. But it's clear that neither is in dire straits.
The Senate Is Definitely in Play: A whole bunch of that ActBlue money went to Democrats in the key U.S. Senate races. Here's a breakdown:
State Candidate Q1 Total Alaska Mary Peltola $8.6 million Alaska Dan Sullivan $1.7 million Georgia Jon Ossoff $3.8 million Georgia Mike Collins $1 million Georgia Derek Dooley $0.65 million Georgia Earl Carter $0.44 million Iowa Ashley Hinson $2.4 million Iowa Josh Turek $1.1 million Iowa Zach Wahls $1.1 million Maine Graham Platner $4.1 million Maine Susan Collins $2.9 million Maine Janet Mills $2.5 million Michigan Mallory McMorrow $3 million Michigan Abdul El-Sayed $2.3 million Michigan Mike Rogers $2.2 million Michigan Haley Stevens $1.9 million New Hampshire Chris Pappas $3.3 million New Hampshire John Sununu $1.1 million New Hampshire Scott Brown $0.32 million North Carolina Roy Cooper $8.4 million North Carolina Michael Whatley $3.2 million Ohio Sherrod Brown $10 million Ohio Jon Husted $2.9 million Texas James Talarico $27.1 million Texas John Cornyn $2.7 million Texas Ken Paxton $1.7 million
In eight of the nine races, the top Democrat has the fundraising lead, often by a huge margin. And in the ninth, Ashley Hinson's lead is not too big, especially if you add both of her Democratic challengers' totals together. Money and enthusiasm (especially out-of-state enthusiasm) aren't everything, but they aren't nothing, either. And the overall picture here is certainly a rosy one for the blue team.
It's a "Throw the Bums Out" Kind of Year: Thus far, with Q1 reports still trickling in (particularly from Republicans), nine incumbent House Democrats raised less money than one (or more) of their primary challengers. Eleven non-incumbent Democrats have raised $1 million or more in swing districts, seven of those eleven have outraised the incumbent Republican in their district. Some early indications that Democratic primary voters want new blood, and that Americans in general might agree.
That's the news for now. There may be more next week, as the rest of the numbers come in. That said, the candidates who raise real eye-popping amounts tend to announce early, to get a few free headlines. Most of the outstanding reports will be from candidates who underwhelmed, and are trying to sneak that in under the radar. (Z)