Dem
53
Ties
2
GOP
45
The cheap seats are all gone. Republicans hope to spend $1 billion in October to save the midterms, but it may be too late. A large chunk may come from Donald Trump's private slush fund, MAGA Inc., which has over $400 million cash on hand. The problem is that campaigns that reserved ad space in the spring got good deals but campaigns trying to buy space now are sometimes paying 3-5x what the early birds paid. That is the same principle as someone buying an airplane ticket the day before the flight and discovering that the person next to him paid a fifth of what he paid by buying the ticket 6 months ago. Much higher ad rates means much less bang for the buck.
One key race where the money is flowing is Texas, which has a very contested Senate race featuring a very bad candidate who needs to be propped up by massive ad spending in a very expensive state. The last time a Democrat was elected to the Senate from Texas was in 1988, yet MAGA Inc. spent $22 million last month trying to help Ken Paxton. The MAGA Inc. ads are running mostly on streaming services. The group has been paying almost $900 per ad while James Talarico is paying $290 for the same amount of time because he reserved a time slot many months ago. Note that the rule is not that campaigns have to be charged the same as all the other campaigns. The rule is that campaigns have to be charged the lowest current market rate. So, if the rate that longtime, regular advertiser Sneed's Feed and Seed (formerly Chuck's) would pay an outlet for a spot is $900, because inventory is low, then that's the rate the campaigns pay.
Neil Newhouse, a veteran Republican pollster, thinks the ship has already left the dock. He said: "After the votes are counted, I think we're going to find the most effective advertising in terms of communicating message and moving voters and poll numbers, the most effective time was advertising that happened well before Labor Day, not after it. A million dollars of advertising in October is a drop in the bucket."
Money is important, but isn't everything. Kamala Harris spent much more than Donald Trump in October 2024, but it couldn't bail her out. Elon Musk spent $25 million on a single Wisconsin Supreme Court race and his candidate was wiped out. Right now the Republicans have almost twice as much money to spend this month as Democrats, but if Newhouse is right, it is too late because most people have already made up their minds and seeing the same ad 50 times next week isn't going to change it.
Nevertheless, Democrats are not giving up on trying to catch up. They are starting to employ their secret weapon: Barack Obama. He recorded two dozen ads last week, is starting to appear at fundraisers, and is campaigning for selected Democrats around the country, including James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa in Texas, Josh Turek in Iowa, and Abdul El-Sayed and Jocelyn Benson in Michigan. (V)