Scoop: Senate Democrats go to war over GOP ad spending loophole

• The FEC will decide this week if one GOP strategy can keep going, with a vote expected Thursday.
• People who closely follow the commission tell Axios the expectation is for the vote to split along party lines — a 3-3 decision, clearing the way for the GOP to continue.

Between the lines: Massive ad spending in Senate races has led prices to skyrocket, especially in Montana and Ohio, ruby red states that Democrats are defending.

• The Democratic Party, campaigns and outside groups are flush with cash, while Republican counterparts have struggled to keep up.
• Republicans have been trying to leverage discounted rates that are legally guaranteed for Senate candidates and their authorized committees — which aren't super PACs.

Zoom in: The DSCC is arguing Republicans have gone too far — cheating campaign finance rules by making ads that look mostly like attack ads, but which are paid for by joint fundraising committees as if they are fundraising ads.

• They say the strategy lets campaigns get around limits to how much committees can contribute.
• Republicans argue that the tactic is allowed, and that Democrats including Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris have used similar strategies.
• They also point to a 2007 FEC opinion that said advertising with fundraising asks must be paid for by joint fundraising committees.

What they're saying: Democrats highlighted Republican ads in Montana, Arizona, Maryland and Nebraska when they filed the complaint on Oct. 3.

• Those ads largely attack Democratic incumbents or candidates and end with a brief fundraising ask.
• "This would allow national party committees and political action committees to cover hundreds of millions of dollars in candidate advertising expenses by claiming such costs are fundraising expenses," the DSCC and the campaigns for Democrats Jon Tester and Ruben Gallego said in their complaint to the FEC.
• A GOP campaign finance attorney told Axios that "in normal times" it would have been an easy, unanimous FEC vote, but they expect the Democratic commissioners to fall in line with the party.