Why GOP's Huge Cash Advantage Won't Save Republicans From Midterm Crash
Still from Sherrod Brown message answering Senate Republican SuperPAC ad in Ohio
Republicans are massively outspending Democrats in a desperate bid to hold on to their House and Senate majorities, with President Donald Trump’s super PAC and other outside groups financed by the GOP’s billionaire benefactors running hundreds of millions in ads slamming their Democratic opponents as dangerous radicals.
But even Republicans are admitting that their cash advantage is not the silver bullet they were hoping for, warning that even with the ad onslaught, the party is losing—and badly.
“We’re gonna get crushed,” an unnamed House Republican lawmaker told MS NOW. “The only question is by how much.”
There’s a number of reasons why the GOP’s spending isn’t going to save them from electoral disaster.
First, the spending disparity in some places isn’t as big as it looks.
Campaign finance law dictates that candidates get better ad rates than super PACs. And given that Democratic hopefuls are far out-raising their GOP counterparts in Senate contests in Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, and Ohio, it makes the ad spending disparities smaller than meets the eye.
Indeed, those who want to make a difference in the election should donate directly to candidates in competitive races, rather than outside groups. Daily Kos has helpfully put together a handy list of House and Senate candidates that we believe your donations will be best spent on.
Most important, however, is the fact that no amount of money can change the outcome of an election if the ad messaging is not addressing the issues most important to voters. And that’s exactly what’s happening.
As Americans practically beg the Republican-controlled Congress to address the high cost of living and skyrocketing gas prices, Republicans are instead running bigoted ads fearmongering about transgender issues.
The ads are not only vile, but they are filled with lies, including the absurd whopper that Democrats want to force kids into getting sex changes.
Republicans are running anti-transgender ads because they think that message is what won them the White House and control of the House and Senate in 2024.
Yet the 2024 cycle was about the cost of living. And voters (wrongly) thought Trump and the GOP would better address inflation.
Two years in, however, Trump and Republicans have done nothing to help alleviate their financial woes. Instead, they have made it worse with idiotic tariffs and the boondoggle of a war in Iran that has spiked fuel prices and inflation.
Now, Republicans are ignoring their role in making life worse for Americans, and are instead focused on an issue that just 1% of Americans say is most important to them.
What’s more, in 2026 many of the states where these vile anti-trans ads are running have already passed laws restricting transgender rights. So fearmongering about the issue just doesn’t hit as hard.
“The bottom’s beginning to fall out,” an unnamed “House Republican from a blood-red district” told Politico. “We have money that we’ve never had before, but they have every strategic advantage in their direction, and the president’s made it worse.”
Ultimately, the GOP ad-pocalypse began two weeks ago, when Trump finally unleashed his war chest, as Republicans had been begging him to do for months.
But since then, polling has only gotten worse for the GOP, as gas prices reached historic highs thanks to the war in Iran spiraling further out of control.
Democrats’ lead on the generic ballot—which asks voters which party they will vote for in their congressional districts—has grown more than 2 points since Trump’s embarrassing midterm convention. In fact, an Economist/YouGov poll released Tuesday found Democrats with a stunning 14-point lead on the generic ballot—the highest the poll has clocked this cycle and an outcome that would lead to an electoral wipeout for the GOP.
Just as Republicans couldn’t gerrymander their way to a majority, they can’t spend their way out of this mess of their own making.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos
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