GOP gets new midterm spending weapon from SCOTUS
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NRSC Chair Tim Scott at the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 13, 2024. Photo: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Senate GOP campaign arm won a major Supreme Court boost in the party's bid to hold congressional majorities on Tuesday.
Why it matters: Republicans' reliance on mega-donors and their cash-flush committees positions them to benefit more than Democrats from the ruling, which allows committees to spend unlimited sums in coordination with candidates as they push against headwinds in November.
- GOP officials reacted with glee to the Tuesday ruling, deriding Democrats who have criticized the decision for giving more power to the wealthiest donors.
- "The tool is available to both sides. It should be a bipartisan issue," the NRSC's political director, Brendan Jaspers, told stakeholders on a Tuesday call, adding that Democrats are just "upset the playing field is being leveled in this way."
Zooming in: The ruling means that committee dollars will stretch significantly further because they can now take advantage of cheaper ad prices available to candidates — 3 times to 13 times cheaper, according to an NRSC memo.
- Campaigns will also be able to tap committees' lower postage rates and benefit from streaming ad packages the committees have negotiated across states.
- The decision also lets committees work directly with campaigns on spending that had been capped for decades.
Following the ruling, the Senate GOP campaign committee announced it would sunset its independent expenditures unit, moving to almost all coordinated ad buys with candidates — leveraging the new rules.
- NRSC deputy executive director Stephen DeMaura touted "total and complete victory" on the call. Officials said they have spent months preparing for this decision.
By the numbers: The Republican National Committee has $125 million in cash-on-hand to the Democratic National Committee's $15 million (plus $18 million in debt) as of the end of May, according to their most recent FEC filings.
- The Senate GOP arm has $49 million to Democrats' $39 million.
- The House GOP arm has $82 million to Democrats' $73 million.
Yes, but: Democrats still have much stronger grassroots and direct-to-campaign fundraising.
- Democratic candidates consistently out-raise Republicans at the, and the party has long leveraged ActBlue's small-dollar fundraising power.
- "We are still vastly outspent by Democrats," DeMaura warned stakeholders, saying their stronger committee-level spending "is going to be wiped out by their small-dollar advantage."
Catch up quick: The case, NRSC v. Federal Election Commission, was brought by two Republican committees, Vice President Vance and former Ohio Rep. Steve Chabot.
- The ruling is the latest campaign finance decision from SCOTUS to narrow the government's power to restrict political spending.
