Dem
52
Ties
2
GOP
46
Donald Trump has finally begun spending some of that mountain of cash his super PAC has piled up. Not a huge portion of it, mind you, but some. To be precise, the PAC has pledged $81.9 million of the $403.5 million it has on hand. There's no indication as to what Trump is doing with the rest, but our guess is that he takes his pants off and swims in it, like Scrooge McDuck does.
Thus far, there are 10 races where Trump's PAC has committed to spending at least $1 million. Here they are:
| Race | Matchup | Trump PAC Spending |
| U.S. Senate, Michigan | Abdul El-Sayed (D) vs. Mike Rogers (R) | $17.8 million |
| U.S. Senate, Ohio | Sherrod Brown (D) vs. Jon Husted (R) | $12.0 million |
| U.S. Senate, Alaska | Mary Peltola (D) vs. Dan Sullivan (R) | $11.2 million |
| U.S. Senate, New Hampshire | Chris Pappas (D) vs. John Sununu (R) | $10.7 million |
| U.S. Senate, Texas | James Talarico (D) vs. Ken Paxton (R) | $10.0 million |
| U.S. House, FL-25 | Jared Moskowitz (D) vs. Scott Singer (R) | $6.8 million |
| U.S. Senate, North Carolina | Roy Cooper (D) vs. Michael Whatley (R) | $5.3 million |
| U.S. House, NY-17 | Cait Conley (D) vs. Mike Lawler (R) | $4.0 million |
| U.S. Senate, Georgia | Jon Ossoff (D) vs. Mike Collins (R) | $2.2 million |
| U.S. House, WA-03 | Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D) vs. John Braun (R) | $1.7 million |
Incidentally, because MAGA is pretty radioactive these days, much of this spending is being done in the name of the newly created No Going Back PAC.
What to make of this list? Well, whoever is making the decisions is certainly trying to get bang for their buck. The biggest outlays are, by and large, in small or medium states with very competitive Senate races. By contrast, some of the spending further down the list seems to be "polite," more than anything else. Mike Collins is in trouble, and $2.2 million isn't going to come close to moving the needle in Georgia. Same with Michael Whatley in North Carolina and the $5.3 million Trump's PACs have committed to spending there.
As to the House races that seem to be of particular interest to Trump's operation, we're really not entirely sure what is going on. Certainly, these three races are among the most competitive this cycle, and Trump's pollster Tony Fabrizio may have data-driven insights that are not available to the general public. That said, there are at least a dozen other House races just as competitive as these that have thus far not seen any investment at all from the MAGA PAC. Trump does not appear to have a particular grudge against the Democrats in any of the three races where his PAC is spending big, and none of them include key properties in his portfolio (though FL-25 is somewhat close to Mar-a-Lago; it's about 25 miles south of the Trump residence).
Anyhow, the main takeaways here, from our vantage point, are that Trump does not seem to be interested in spending all that much money in Texas, even though he created the mess there, and he does not seem to be interested in spending all that much money overall. There comes a point, and we may already be there, that opportunities to spend additional funds become scarce, because all the ad inventory is booked. (Z)