Democrats are struggling to catch up to Republicans in the fundraising and ad spending wars with less than 100 days until the midterm elections happen in November.
June ended with the Democratic National Committee having $16.3 million cash in hand, but struggling with $18.5 million in debt. Their situation is a stark contrast to the Republican National Committee, which reported $128.5 million cash in hand and no debt.
The three Republican committees and their two caucus-affiliated super PACs reported $657 million cash on hand at the end of June, the latest filings from the Federal Election Commission show.
The GOP war chest is double the $334 million banked by the Democrats.
DNC Chair Ken Martin recently said the party’s cash flow gap won’t stop Democrats from winning.
“The current DNC has raised the most money of any DNC without the White House in the 198-year history of the Democratic Party,” he wrote on Substack.
He said the DNC is “converting the cash we raise into electoral assets: more people, earlier organizing, better technology, and stronger state parties.”
Along with their congressional affiliated caucus PACs, Republicans have Trump muscle with the MAGA Inc. super PAC that has the lion’s share of the $657 million.
The money is already being spent during this year’s primary cycle in a big way.
A new report by Ad Impact, an advertising tracking firm, projects spending on political advertisements for the 2026 midterm elections will exceed spending for the 2024 presidential cycle.
Republicans are currently leading Democrats in that ad spending.
This year’s ad spending is projected to reach $11.6 billion, making it the most expensive cycle ever and far surpassing the $11.2 billion spent on ads in 2024 when then-Republican presidential nominee Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris went head to head.
The new forecast is a $795 million jump from the prediction made last year.
According to Ad Impact’s latest analysis, of the $842.6 million in fall reservations targeting congressional races, $463.2 million is targeting Senate races and Republican advertisers have $139 million more in reservations than Democrats.
Among the top political advertisers by spending and ad reservations are the conservative Senate Leadership Fund with $218.4 million; the liberal House Majority PAC, with $204.4 million; the conservative Congressional Leadership Fund with $168.5 million and the liberal WinSenate with $143.9 million.
Republicans used their ad money and dominated airtime during the FIFA World Cup games, which happens every other political cycle.
Ad Impact tracked over 2,000 broadcast airings that targeted the World Cup games across 172 different advertisers.
“By airings, it’s nearly a 50:50 split between candidates and outside groups. When looking just at airings by candidates, Republican advertisers aired nearly double the number of airings Democrats did,” the advertising tracking outlet stated.
Of the 110 elections and political issues targeted with ads during World Cup programming, 71 were primaries, but Democrats edged out Republicans in the number of general election ad messaging during the World Cup games, particularly in competitive Senate races in Maine, North Carolina and Texas.
“Among the 20 general elections we tracked World Cup airings for, Democratic advertisers aired more ads during the games than their Republican counterparts in 11 of the contests,” Ad Impact said.
