In the days since last week’s thrashing, Republicans are second-guessing a lot of decisions about the elections. One of the biggest surprises has to be the GOP’s inability to turn its record fundraising into tangible wins. While both parties raised eye-popping amounts of cash — $12.8 billion by the time the polls closed — Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) side was especially flush with cash after his months-long tour of congressional districts. But at the end of the day, how much of an impact did those dollars actually have?
It was meant to be funny, but most people probably resonated with the Babylon Bee’s post: “Nation wondering if maybe we could just forget about election and all split the money each side spent on campaign ads.” The almost $13 billion blown on the midterms could, after all, buy a lot of things: 130 major hospitals (at $100 million each); 260,000 cars (at $50,000 each); even a full year of pay for every minimum-wage worker, Stanford’s wealth-scale comparison calculates. Instead, hundreds of millions of dollars were pumped into a 24/7 cycle of campaign ads and candidate promotion that most Americans tune out long before November.
The GOP had a significant edge in spending, but, as The New York Times points out, “In an instant, on one evening, it no longer mattered. … The much-vaunted Republican war chest crashed into a tsunami of grass-roots momentum as the votes were tallied, raising serious questions — yet again — about the true power of money in national politics.”
In multiple districts, Republicans invested tens of millions of dollars to keep their hopefuls competitive, only to lose by double digits. “GOP groups spent nearly $21 million trying to oust Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas). Gonzalez won by 16 points,” Punchbowl News notes. “In Texas’ 15th District, Democrat Bobby Pulido withstood $14.5 million in Republican spending and won by 25 points. In the open 35th District, Democrat Johnny Garcia faced $13 million in GOP spending and won by 11 points. No nail-biters here.”
Elsewhere, the outlet explained, “Republicans spent $19 million in a bid to save Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.). He lost by 15 points. In Pennsylvania, the GOP spent nearly $17 million to save Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, who lost by 12 points; $15.4 million for Rep. Rob Bresnahan, who lost by nine points; and $12.7 million for Rep. Scott Perry, who lost by 10 points.” The list goes on and on.
And the Senate races were even more lopsided. Republicans outspent Democrats on ads in almost every swing race by a quarter billion dollars, according to AdImpact. And yet, in red states like Texas, it bought a 12-point loss. In Ohio (the largest total investment on both sides at a whopping $516 million), Texas, Michigan, Iowa, Maine, Alaska, and New Hampshire, the GOP sank much more into their races than their blue competition and came away completely empty-handed (with the Dan Sullivan chaos in The Last Frontier State still playing out). Only their shocking flips in South Carolina and Kansas cost Democrats more.
“There are some election years where just the conditions are middling, and then you know the electioneering can make the difference,” political scientist Lynn Vavreck told the Times. “But in a terribly difficult economic environment like this one? ‘You’re not going to advertise your way out of that,’ she said.”
Travis Trawick, founder and CEO of FullPAC GOTV, agreed, reiterating that the GOP’s ad spending couldn’t change voters’ deep frustrations over the economy, the Iran war, and government corruption. “Money’s great when you have some wind in your sails,” he insisted to The Daily Caller, “but when you have nothing but headwinds, it can’t really do anything for you. I don’t think an infinite amount of money would have allowed them to overcome the obstacles in this election.”
While the GOP doesn’t have a lot to show for their hefty investment, you have to wonder how much worse it could have been without the gobs of cash on hand. But unfortunately, fending off universal voter frustration meant they were forced to defend just about every seat instead of zeroing in on key areas, Trawick believes. “[I]nstead of conceding that they were going to be losing the House … losing some of these top races, and consolidating some of their spending in the places that they could try to protect, they spread out thin. And the Democrats were able to really target their advertising to the places like Texas and Georgia that allowed them to flip some of these votes and actually have a massive win on Election Day.”
To FRC Action’s Matt Carpenter, it was a perfect storm. “While the enormous amount of money did not save Republican congressional majorities, it’s worth taking into consideration the headwinds they were facing: historic trends of the party in power losing seats in a midterm cycle, a president with upside-down approval ratings, stubbornly high prices, and more,” he reasoned.
“One bright spot for conservatives is that many of the ballot initiatives that advanced conservative policies prevailed despite being dramatically outspent,” Carpenter noted to The Washington Stand. “For example, take Colorado’s dual ballot measures confronting gender ideology in the state, Prop 134 and Prop 135, the former to protect girls’ sports from unfair competition from male athletes and the latter to protect minors from the harms of so-called gender transition surgeries. Both prevailed despite the ‘No’ side raising and spending millions more than the ‘Yes’ side. The lesson here is that, even in deep blue Colorado, conservative policy victories are possible. If the GOP is looking for a path forward here, it is to work more on enacting socially conservative policies once they have majorities.”
In the meantime, the mad money spent in these midterms certainly gives both sides something to think about. There’s this idea that if you raise more money, you’ll win, Vavreck pointed out. History just doesn’t bear that out. “It’s not a disadvantage, but it isn’t sufficient.” After all, NPR’s Scott Simon quipped, “As the Los Angeles Dodgers might remind us [this year], spending the most money doesn’t always deliver victory.”
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared at The Washington Stand.
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