Republicans Enter the Midterm Final Stretch With a Roughly $1 Billion Money Edge

Republicans enter the final stretch of the midterm elections with a large financial advantage. Estimates suggest they have roughly $1 billion in campaign funds available, spread across several channels, which the host describes as nearly double that of comparable Democratic groups.

The host notes that Elon Musk alone has spent more than $250 million of his own money on this year's midterms, and that overall the Republicans are expected to outspend the Democrats by an estimated $400 to $500 million. The host also points to a central puzzle: Trump's approval has reached a historic low and appears to be dragging his party down, so the question is whether all that money will still matter. Goldmacher's answer is that money is important but does not determine the outcome of an election, though its importance grows the closer the result is expected to be.

When the discussion turns to how many seats Democrats can win, the host explains that Republican money is seen as a real limit on their chances. The host frames the coming weeks around the question of whether the Republican Party is winning by spending money, or whether it is putting a billion dollars behind everything needed to help it.

The host acknowledges that Republicans face a difficult task in November, with inflation, high prices and a war with Iran that voters did not ask for weighing on them. Still, the host calls Republican financial resources a significant bright spot for the party, and introduces Shane Goldmacher of The New York Times to explain where the money comes from, where it goes, and what the 2026 fundraising landscape suggests about 2028.

Goldmacher says the Republican financial edge is bigger than he has seen in the past 20 years, and that it comes almost entirely from big donors. He gives a concrete breakdown: Trump's super PAC had about $400 million in early September, with no Democratic counterpart of similar size. The Republican National Committee, which is controlled by Trump, had $130 million more than the Democratic National Committee, which he says had more debts than cash on hand.

Goldmacher says those two entities alone account for roughly half a billion dollars. The host notes that Goldmacher had described this as a historic advantage, and asks whether it is larger than normal. Goldmacher points out that in recent cycles Democrats were the ones with more money. Kamala Harris spent considerably more than Donald Trump in the 2024 general election, Joe Biden spent considerably more than Trump in 2020, and Hillary Clinton did so in 2016. The midterms have followed the same pattern, which Goldmacher describes as a turning point.

Because Democrats have historically been outspent, the host connects the reversal to the question of how many seats Democrats can win, a question that has largely been shaped by the political landscape and Trump's unpopularity. In this framing, Republican money is seen as a real constraint on Democratic prospects.

Goldmacher says most of the donors are publicly known, and that Trump has been open about raising funds since the moment he won. He began raising money for the super PAC immediately and has not stopped since taking office. Trump has also been clear that he is in business to help people who help him, and Goldmacher says large crypto companies have given money in the hope of favorable government regulation.

He describes the supporters as many large companies, many wealthy Republicans who support Trump regardless, and industry groups that benefit from staying in the good graces of a partisan White House.

The host recalls the scene at Trump's second inauguration, with Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk standing behind him, and asks whether the people financing this donor advantage are tech oligarchs or the tech sector as a whole. Goldmacher says a lot of tech is involved but does not think it is exclusively so, and calls Musk an extra money pot on top of the two existing ones.

Goldmacher explains that the two existing groups already total about half a billion dollars, and that adding Musk's contributions brings the total closer to a billion. He reports that Musk, the richest person in the world, is set to spend at least $200 million. Musk gives directly to the Trump super PAC and also to super PACs supporting congressional candidates. Goldmacher says the money is so large that it is hard to tell whether it all comes from one group, and that the crypto industry's money runs separately from the spending of these groups for Republicans.

The host asks whether this is a trade: whether a group of companies thinks it is worth investing in an unpopular man and his party in exchange for regulation that favors them. Goldmacher says that is not the whole explanation, noting that much of the money arrived early, when Trump was not yet so unpopular, and that he raised a huge amount during the 2025 campaign.

Goldmacher cautions against overstating the Republican advantage, noting that many Democratic candidates raise enormous sums, particularly online. He points to James Talarico as the leading example. The Texas Senate race is currently the most expensive in the country, and Republicans are putting $200 million into the campaign to save the candidate there, Ken Paxton, who has faced many scandals. Outside groups have invested comparatively little on the Democratic side in Texas, but Talarico has captured the imagination of a small but energized Democratic base and raised tens of millions of dollars from donors.

Goldmacher says he would be surprised if Talarico did not reach $100 million by the end of the campaign. He adds that federal candidates have an advantage: they can buy television ads at lower rates than super PACs, which could partially offset the $200 million Republican spending. The host notes how striking that Republican spending in Texas is, given the state's historical tendency to vote Republican, and asks what it means that Republicans are pulling money from North Carolina while investing in Texas.

The discussion turns to the Republican pull-back from North Carolina, which Goldmacher describes as effectively giving up on that state, and to the decision to move money into South Carolina and Kansas. He says South Carolina was once considered a safe Senate seat for Republicans, the former seat of Lindsey Graham, where Graham's sister is now running and where there are doubts about whether she is well known and popular enough. More money has also gone to Kansas.

Goldmacher argues that if a party pulls money from North Carolina, where no Democrat has been elected since 2008, and then moves it into a state where no Democrat has been elected since 1932, that says something about where the bar is set. He notes that the risk for Democrats now is roughly the reverse of what happened in 2022, when Republicans targeted seats in Rhode Island and New York and took the House, but the wave was not big enough to win the blue states. The concern for Democrats now is that a wave may come, but Kansas has a strong Republican institutional advantage that is hard to overcome.

Herndon argues that when a party is the only one running ads or sending mailers, the effect is much larger, because there is no muddied back-and-forth in which both sides fight over the same audience. He asks whether Republicans are emphasizing a specific theme with their money, recalling Trump's 2024 advertisement about Kamala Harris and transgender issues.

Goldmacher says there are many ads on the same transgender topic, but that the ad's effectiveness is widely misunderstood. He argues that people think it worked only because it touched on an unpopular topic, but that it was really about Democrats focusing on the wrong things while life had become more expensive, with inflation and Democrats seemingly not addressing economic problems. He says Republicans now use the same kinds of ads, and that the mood of the campaign has changed because Democrats are constantly talking about the economy.

Herndon describes the situation as a dilemma in which the parties can never quite get it right. He notes that many Republicans are trying to convince people they should not worry about their economic situation, and says it is one of the great ironies of this moment that they sound exactly like the Democrats did during Biden's inflation campaign, a message that Republicans had understood to be a losing tactic.

Herndon adds that some Republicans are trying to distance themselves from President Trump on certain economic issues. In Michigan, Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers is shown opening a Labatt Blue in a bar and saying that Canada is not an enemy and that the trade war should end now. Herndon notes it is October and that it is not hard to find that Rogers was on the other side of that issue twelve months earlier, and nine months earlier had been on the other side of the war in Iran. The Republican Party has backed Trump's actions, and voters know it.

Goldmacher says Trump has such a strong grip on the Republican Party that it is very hard to convince a voter that you are a different kind of Republican, because there have been so few others. He explains that Trump defeated most of them one by one in many primaries.

The discussion then turns to timing. Goldmacher asks where the money will actually be spent as the election nears: more advertising, more mailers, a higher frequency of existing tactics, or a different allocation in the final phase. He describes the spending as largely more of the same. He recounts that when he tried to watch political ads on YouTube in Pennsylvania this month, he was shown three political ads before the one he wanted to see.

Goldmacher says many people now avoid political news on purpose, so reaching them costs more money. Older approaches, such as ads aired on the local evening news, reach voters who are probably already decided. Reaching younger people who avoid politics requires finding them on their phones or in their mailboxes. Door-to-door canvassing and some organizing still happen, but most of the money goes to different forms of advertising.

Herndon asks whether party organizing, including the door-knocking popularized by Obama and Stacey Abrams, has been abandoned. Goldmacher says a lot of effort goes into organizing, but money can move quickly, as when a party pulls money from North Carolina and invests in Kansas. Organizers cannot be moved that way. He says mobilization depends on the candidate and the state, and cites Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed, who according to his colleague Nate Cohn had many weaknesses in a poll but also one of the best scores among young voters of any Senate candidate.

Asked which Democratic races are underfunded, Goldmacher says governor races are the number one priority. Democratic donors, however, go mainly to Senate races, including candidates who may be long shots but who have raised around $100 million. The host recalls that Jaime Harrison raised record small-dollar money against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, but lost by about 10 points, and that at that moment Democratic donors were dreaming about the candidate in that specific race.

In Texas, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa has not raised nearly as much money as Greg Abbott, who has raised about $100 million, even though Talarico has generated enormous enthusiasm. Goldmacher suggests that Senate candidates may be more focused on the presidential race and therefore look further ahead, while governor races are plainly important because governors choose successors and shape state elections. Asked why donors might favor one kind of race over another, he says the simple answer is that if you do not live in the state, the race does not affect you.

Goldmacher says that, as a strategy, donors have a particular approach, but the most important point about governor races is that donors do not live in the state. He asks whether anyone is truly excited about turning a race in Iowa, and answers that probably not. The host then recounts the reporting from Wisconsin, where Democrats were trying to win a trifecta, the term the source uses for winning the state's presidency and Senate in that state.

The host describes how Democrats in Wisconsin argued against the premise that control of the state legislature and governorship matters only to people living in that state. Their case was that it is important to show Democrats can govern well there. Goldmacher notes that this link is less explicit than the question of whether his party holds more than 50 Senate seats, which makes it harder to attract the investment needed for this kind of race. The host also observes that governor races in key states are among the most important contests this year, yet both parties' national donors and super PACs have not funded them at the same level.

Asked how to interpret the rise of small donations among Democrats, Goldmacher says that small-dollar fundraising has the potential to affect campaigns more than it does now. He says most candidates have not drastically changed their campaign strategy, and that the number of people focusing exclusively on small online donations remains quite small. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are examples of candidates who rely heavily on that model.

Goldmacher describes a kind of vicious cycle in which candidates need all those small online donors but also need a few billionaires funding a super PAC. For most Democrats, he says, it is not an either-or situation. Many want both, because they do not want to depend too heavily on one source. A candidate who takes a position that does not match the wishes of small donors can lose money from them, just as a candidate who takes a position at odds with large donors can lose their money. Goldmacher argues that many candidates therefore spread their risk, and that this has eroded the old fundraising model, which explains why nearly every Democrat says they will not accept corporate PAC money.

The host asks how Democrats can say they reject corporate PAC money while the influence of big donations remains a concern. Goldmacher answers that most people do not accept corporate PAC money because it is not a large part of the money available. It is possible if you have been in Congress for a long time, have a safe seat, and do not want to work for it: you can go around K Street, where small events are organized for you and a few hundred thousand dollars are raised. But for an ambitious Democrat, he says, it is not worth it, because they can raise more online by saying they do not take that money.

He adds that new players in each election cycle, such as the artificial intelligence industry, are spending hundreds of millions of dollars, which creates serious concern among both Democrats and Republicans about a donor group that could spend enough to drown out a candidate's message. Herndon connects this to backlash from the grassroots against the rise of AI, especially around data centers, which Goldmacher says was visible even in rural communities such as Menomonie, Wisconsin.

Goldmacher says Democratic governors are reversing course and turning against data centers, citing Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, and that numerous elections see both parties airing anti-data-center ads. He argues that many of these developments depend on whether voters intuitively know if a given party is for or against something. In his view, they generally do not, except for Donald Trump, who now openly speaks in favor of data centers, although his whole party is not yet fully behind him on this.

He says politicians have no clear idea where the long-term trajectory leads, and asks whether data centers will remain a major issue in 2026. The basic question, he says, is whether this will change the economy and how people's lives function, and no politician wants to be on the wrong side. The result is strong risk aversion at present, and he does not think the process is truly dynamic.

Goldmacher says he has not seen another Republican who has energized donors in the past decade. Asked about J.D. Vance, he says there is no evidence that Vance was a good fundraiser before joining Trump, and that his Senate primary campaign was financed mainly by Peter Thiel through a super PAC. Some candidates raise money, but nothing on the scale that Democratic candidates have managed to reach online.

Asked about a turning point in the Trump era, Goldmacher says it is not yet known whether anyone else will re-energize Republican small donors. Herndon notes that voters who are distant from politics are often only motivated when Trump is on the ballot, and that there is no evidence yet that a different type of candidate can drive financial support for Trump-style politics among small donors. Goldmacher says the online donor base remains pro-Trump even as his popularity has fallen.

Herndon concludes that money is not everything, especially in an election this nationalized. Voters know who is responsible for high inflation and who started the war with Iran, and no quantity of television ads calling Democrats socialists and communists will change that. He argues that Republicans' large spending advantage is one of the reasons Trump has become so unpopular.

He says Trump was supposed to be a president for the working class who would bring prices down, but in his second term the opposite has happened. In Herndon's account, Trump has made the government a safe harbor for crypto companies, prediction markets and tech oligarchs, and Trump and the elite around him are enjoying themselves greatly during this presidency. That is why they receive so much money, and why he faces a backlash in the midterms.