Senate Dems brace for a red wave — of cash
Senate Dems brace for a red wave — of cash
Their incumbents are holding their own and their challengers are keeping pace. But Republican super PACs are only beginning to unleash their firepower.
Democrats have an early spending edge in the race between Sen. Raphael Warnock and GOP nominee Herschel Walker, a former football star anointed by former President Donald Trump who has struggled on the trail. | Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo
By BURGESS EVERETT and NATALIE ALLISON
08/25/2022 05:15 PM EDT
Senate Democrats are coming off a summertime high, clinching legislation on everything from climate to gun safety as their candidates outpolled and outraised Republicans in key battlegrounds. Now comes the post-Labor Day GOP surge.
The Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC aligned with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is set to narrow the financial disparities currently holding his party back in its bid to retake the Senate. The super PAC has more than $160 million in advertising on the books for the post-Labor Day crunch, according to AdImpact — just the beginning of a cash blitz that’spoised to blunt the financial edge that Democratic candidates have enjoyed for 18 months.
It’s a repeat in the making of 2020, when the GOP PAC notched blockbuster fundraising down the stretch and rained down ads on Senate Democratic candidates that helped avert a complete Republican collapse, though the chamber still narrowly flipped. And Democrats expect this year’s polls to tighten enough to make every race a nail-biter.
