Can $700 Million Buy Republicans the US Senate?

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1:51Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. Bill Allison and Bill Ferries, I have to address the fact that we have two Bills in the proverbial room. And Bill Allison, we were sort of joking behind the scenes here that we could call you Dollar Bill, just given your focus on campaign finance. Has anyone ever called you that before? I don't think anyone's ever called me that, at least not in a long, long time. We're going to start.

2:20I'm Sarah Holder, and this is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, I sit down with Bill Allison, who covers campaign finance, and Bill Ferries, who's managing Bloomberg's coverage of the 2026 U.S. midterms to make sense of the money fueling the battle to control the Senate and how it could shape the U.S. presidential race.

2:44So, Bill F., I'll start with you. Democrats need to pick up four seats in the U.S. Senate to capture a majority there. Even a few months ago, it seemed like Republicans had a good chance of holding on to their majority. But now, a bit more than a month before the midterm elections, there are more states that are seen as toss-ups. Yeah, I think it's one of the big surprises of this campaign cycle, because if you step back six months or a year ago and looked at the prospects of the 2026 midterms, you would have said this is going to be a much harder case for Democrats. Four seats, a four-seat pickup seemed like a real stretch even this spring when you started to see some of the frustration build nationally over the economy and the war in Iran and things like that, all those things that have continued.

3:34But now we're at the point where the map still is shifting almost every week. I think there's about nine seats that are kind of in that toss-up or lean Democrat, lean Republican category. And it's not states that we expected. I mean, we're now looking at Kansas as a state where Democrats potentially have a shot at winning a seat that they haven't held since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president. Well, Bill Allison, we are on track for record spending this year on the midterms against this backdrop of sort of a shifting map, really contentious races, a lot at stake. What kind of numbers are we talking about here and what's driving all the spending?

4:17It's really through the roof. I mean, it's and a lot of it is focused on the Senate, too. I mean, if you look at the House side, it's pretty even. I'm talking from September 1st, which I just ran the numbers. They were changing all the time. But if you look at the House side, it's about even 250 million to 250 million, obviously not evenly distributed over the competitive races. But that's where you're seeing the advertising in House races. In the Senate, it's like, you know, Republicans have this, you know, ridiculous, you know,$700 million to$450 million advantage that they're spending. Republicans have really kind of three big, big pieces that maybe they're going to have four soon enough.

4:54But you have Donald Trump's super PAC, which raised, you know, well over$400 million. There's never been a president that has done this. And he's starting to unload that money in various Senate contests. You had the Senate Leadership Fund, which is tied to Senate leadership, and that's just taken in, you know, 25,$20 million contributions from, you know, some of the wealthiest Republicans. You've got the parties, which have raised, you know, Republican parties have raised probably$100 million more than Democratic Party committees. And then the last factor, which is kind of a wild card, which we're just starting to see a lot of spending is Elon Musk's super PAC, which has put in about, you know, more than $20 million.

5:34So that's where the money is coming from. And it's really focused on these, you know, the same, you know, 10 or 11 races where there are toss-ups or they're lean one way or the other. And there's a good chance that party control is going to rest on, you know, which of these states goes Republican and which goes Democrat. And how does the spending volume and these spending trends sort of compare to previous years? Why are we seeing so much more spending on this midterm election? What's changed? I think it's a couple of factors. I mean, obviously, the politics have become much more polarized. People feel like they have a lot more to lose if the other party wins.

6:10But we're seeing things that we haven't seen in previous cycles, one of which is, and we saw it last time with the crypto super PAC that basically just spent on that one issue. We're seeing the same thing this time around with gambling super PACs funded by gambling companies, sports betting companies. There's obviously the AI super PACs, which are different from the other industry super PACs, is that there's two sides there. So they're spending sometimes on different sides of races, sometimes on the same side of races. So new corporate interests are sort of throwing their hat in the ring, so to speak.

6:43Exactly. From a spending perspective. Exactly. These new – and that we haven't seen before. It had previously been kind of like partisan groups and issue-oriented groups, and now we're seeing corporate interests. But all of the other groups seem to be flush with a lot more cash than they used to be. And there was also the Supreme Court case that was decided in June that removed limits on how much national groups can spend in coordination with campaigns. Can you say a little bit more about the significance of that case and how that's impacting what we're seeing on the ground today? You know, one of the very strange things is, you know, Republicans do have more money collectively, but their candidates are trailing Democratic candidates in terms of fundraising.

7:19And the reason why this is important in advertising is that if you're a candidate, you get the lowest unit rate available when you're buying ad time. So you get much more bang for your buck than a super PAC does. The Supreme Court lifted those limits that a party can spend in coordination with a candidate where they can come up with the same message. They can figure out the strategy together. And now that that's lifted, the Republican Party committees, particularly the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is really supplementing what its candidates are spending. So that's really kind of sort of leveling the playing field.

7:51Bill Allison, you wrote last week that the National Republican Senatorial Committee outspent its Democratic counterpart on advertising by nearly 46 to 1 in August. Just Bill Ferries, I'll throw this to you. Is that a sign of strength from the Republican side or is it a sign that the Republican Party is getting nervous about their positioning, again, even in these states that used to vote reliably red? I'd say it's probably a sign of strength in some ways on the Republican side. But maybe what really jumps out at me is probably a sign of weakness on the Democratic side. You know, when we still talk to Democratic donors and strategists, we, you know, we still hear them refer to the hangover from 2024.

8:31Their frustration that the Harris campaign, you know, went through more than a billion dollars in her brief run and, you know, got defeated in pretty much all of the swing states. And there's this frustration with the Democratic Party brand by people who have long supported it. And some of that money is shifting, as Bill pointed out, to, you know, to the candidates. You have candidates like Senator John Ossoff in Georgia, who is having no problem at all raising a lot of money. Look in Texas right now, where James Tallarico has really pulled together a funding juggernaut that has forced Republicans to try to figure out how to help Ken Paxton out.

9:16So there's enthusiasm for some of these candidates, but a lot of questions about the party and questions among donors about whether that's really where they get the most bang for their buck. We've talked a little bit about big money, you know, super PACs, PACs, some of these committees themselves. But I am wondering how you're thinking about direct contributions from individual donors and how Republicans and Democrats stack up there. I mean, Democrats are doing much better with the limited donations that campaigns can take. It's$3 ,500 is the maximum donation. They're doing better with small-dollar donors.

9:51The ActBlue platform, which small-dollar donors use to donate to Democratic candidates, is raising about three times as much money as WinRed, the Republican alternative. The grassroots donor enthusiasm sometimes mirrors the voter enthusiasm. We know that from polling that suggests that Democrats are much more fired up to go to the polls. They're more enthusiastic also about clicking on those links and sending in the$20, the$10, the$15 to candidates that they support. I mean, a lot of the money that you're seeing both John Ossoff and James Tallarico, an incumbent and a challenger, raising are coming from those small-dollar donors.

10:27And are there differences in how Democrat and Republican candidates and campaigns are spending the money they have on hand, whether from these PACs or from individual donors? I think that one of the biggest differences is that because Republicans have this big outside money advantage in super PACs and party committees is that you have candidates less able to control their own message. You know, the Democratic candidates, because they're paying for their own ads, can really control their own messages 100 percent and get a little bit of supplemental from, you know, the super PACs and the outside groups.

11:00So I think that that's one of the biggest differences is how much control of the message there is. More from Bill Allison and Bill Ferries after the break.

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13:32Bill Ferries, we've talked a lot about the role money can play in these races that could determine control of the Senate. What are the other issues animating these races? There's clearly huge frustration, bipartisan frustration across the country with just the cost of living, affordability issues. And, you know, that's been accentuated, I think, by the war with Iran and the jump in gas prices. There's been this cumulative effect of not just going to the gas station for weeks, but for months now and seeing those higher prices. And then beyond just, you know, the commuter costs, we're seeing the diesel prices spiking and farmers in very Republican heartlands in the Midwest suddenly having to pay much higher diesel costs for much longer.

14:22And these are issues that are really hitting key battleground states, right? Like Maine, Alaska, the Midwest. Exactly. And it's what's helping put for the Democrats places like Kansas, Iowa, Ohio in play in a way that I don't think most people saw coming when we were doing this six months ago or a year ago. And of course, these midterms could be read as a referendum on Trump's policies. But I'm wondering where Trump himself fits in. He has also tried to increasingly make the midterm elections about himself. He's told candidates, please pretend that I'm on the ballot. You know, he does believe that he has a record to run on when he talks about the tax bill that went through last year and his immigration policies.

15:05But we're not seeing him deployed to the real battlegrounds. We're seeing him go to more kind of hardcore Republican places. You know, we're talking about Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee. You know, we noticed when he had the midterm convention in Dallas, Susan Collins from Maine did not show up there. There were other candidates who, you know, just didn't make an appearance. And the White House has acknowledged that there are candidates who need to stay focused on campaigning in their districts and not showing up with the president. So it's going to be very interesting in these last few weeks as the president ramps up some of that travel to look at where he's going and who the audience is.

15:43And Bill Allison, Trump also has this huge war chest. Where have you seen the impact of that money showing up? Well, one of the interesting things about that is that, yes, he has this huge – it's branded MAGA Inc., which is obviously his slogan. But the Super PAC is using basically a couple of cutouts. One is called No Going Back PAC. It's almost like a branding exercise that MAGA Inc. in some of these races won't necessarily have as much of an impact with voters as something that they don't know what it is. So that's how he's spending the money. But one place where you're seeing an awful lot of it is Texas.

16:19which is kind of unexpected in the sense that Texas is normally a really Republican state. Ken Paxton has historically not been a great fundraiser. If you look at what's being spent on the Republican side right now, it's about$170 million is booked from September 1st through the end of the election. Of that,$600 ,000, a little less than$600 ,000, is from Paxton's campaign. So clearly it's the outside spending that's really doing a lot in that race, And a lot of that is, you know, money coming from Trump. So he's really kind of shoring up places where you would normally expect Republicans not to have to spend money.

16:57I am wondering about how you're thinking about 2028 and future elections in the context of this heating up midterm. You know, the Supreme Court ruling, for example, you mentioned, which effectively ups how much money national committees can spend in coordination with campaigns, came in June as this midterm cycle was already underway. So do you think it'll have more of an impact next time around? Might it impact how wealthy donors and corporations target and think about their giving? Republicans have a big advantage in 2026 because they have so much more party money. Democrats will catch up. I mean, they see this avenue open to them.

17:35They may have missed out on the boat a little bit in 2026. They'll be ready for 2028. I think we're going to see candidates having their own super PACs, which we saw that on the Republican side a lot. I think we'll see more of it on the Democratic side. I think we'll see much more expensive primaries. There is no incumbent running. So that, you know, that just means that you'll just have like a much bigger field of on both sides and those crowded debate stages and maybe like the double-decker debates on both parties. There will be plenty of money for candidates who are running as long as they can show they have a plausible path to the nomination.

18:12And Bill Ferries, I'll give the last word to you. You know, we've talked about how Republicans are, you know, seeing some states contested in ways they haven't been in decades. They're spending millions to keep control of them. Would a Democratic upset in a state like Kansas, for example, where Republican donors have spent millions, change the calculation in future races? If we see a Democratic upset in a place like Kansas, I think it's probably going to be a sign of a broader national trend where Democrats do well in a whole bunch of states. And, you know, in that case, have a very good shot at taking the Senate on top of the House where they've been favored for a long time.

18:56So I think, you know, you have to look forward to what does that mean in the last two years of Donald Trump's term. And that means a very divided government, probably very little legislation getting through. So there's a potential for a lot of gridlock. There's a potential for a lot of government funding issues going forward. But in terms of the money game, we're just five weeks or so away from, you know, figuring out if the voter dissatisfaction about the economy and things like that, whether the Republican money advantage they have can overcome that. If you're in any of these swing states where the Senate seat is up for grabs, you're going to be barraged with text messages and calls and emails to a degree that you've never seen before.

19:41And that will be the question. Does money kind of outweigh what the polls are showing? It's very possible it might. I think it's going to be a very long election night, and I think it might stretch for days or even possibly a couple weeks afterwards to know who's really in control of both houses of Congress and what that means.

20:18Make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.

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