Democrats outraise Republicans in 27 of 35 Senate races

Musk gives the Senate Leadership Fund $158 million

Federal Election Commission data reviewed by NPR show that more than $15 billion has been raised for the 2026 election cycle since the start of 2025, with half spent so far. From July through September, Democratic or independent candidates raised more than their Republican opponents in 27 of 35 Senate races on the ballot, producing a nearly 5-to-1 advantage in the 13 most competitive contests. NPR reported that the midterms were on track to be the most expensive on record.

AdImpact data show that advertising in House and Senate races has topped $4 billion, with hundreds of millions of dollars more planned for the final two weeks of the election. NPR said the spending was driven in part by enthusiasm for Democratic candidates and massive contributions from Republican megadonors, especially Elon Musk.

The candidate-level fundraising advantage did not translate into an overall advertising advantage for Democrats. NPR reported that Republican outside groups, including a trio of super PACs tied to Trump’s MAGA, Inc., had outspent Democrats on the airwaves as they sought to paint the Democratic Party as too extreme to control Congress.

Democrats hold 47 Senate seats and have sought to use their fundraising edge, along with Republican unpopularity, to target states where Trump won as much as 60% of the vote. NPR said the growing number of competitive Senate races was driven in part by Republicans being outraised by their opponents by sometimes wide margins.

Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico’s main campaign committee reported about $60 million in third-quarter receipts. His campaign said the total was a record for a Senate campaign during that pre-election period. The amount exceeded every other Senate candidate’s entire-cycle total except that of Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia. The fundraising advantage was not confined to longtime expensive toss-up states such as Ohio, Texas and Michigan.

In Kansas, Democrat Adam Hamilton raised nearly $10 million into his primary campaign committee during the third quarter, compared with about $800,000 for incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall. Mississippi Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde Smith reported less than $700,000, while her opponent raised roughly double that amount. Republican Sens. Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Jim Risch of Idaho each disclosed just under half a million dollars, with their opponents reporting roughly double.

Next year’s Congress was already set to have a record number of departures before a number of incumbents who could lose in November were taken into account, NPR reported. The outlet described anti-incumbency sentiment from the primaries continuing in the fundraising data: 50 sitting House members were outraised in the last quarter, about 90% of them Republicans. Of the 17 vulnerable lawmakers on the National Republican Congressional Committee’s NRCC Patriots list, only Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania raised more than his opponent. Only three of the 27 challengers in the committee’s MAGA Majority program were the top fundraisers in their districts.

On the Democratic side, Nevada Rep. Dina Titus was the only vulnerable incumbent identified as a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Frontliner who was outraised. The Democratic candidate raised more money in 40 of the 46 seats targeted as Red to Blue flips, including deep-red districts in Arkansas, Kentucky and Nevada where Republicans had increased advertising. Democrats also raised more in seven longer-shot Districts In Play, including KS-02, MI-01, NE-02 and OH-10, all in states with competitive Senate races.

Among the races expected to be closest in November, Republican Rep. Mike Lawler and Democratic challenger Cait Conley raised more than $7 million combined in New York’s 17th Congressional District during the third quarter. Conley’s $5.4 million haul was the largest of any House campaign and exceeded the third-quarter receipts of all but one incumbent U.S. senator.

Recent campaign filings also showed the scale of Musk’s spending on the Republican effort. In recent weeks, Musk donated $158 million to the Republican Senate Leadership Fund, $20 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, $89 million to his America PAC and $10 million to the pro-Ken Paxton Lone Star Liberty PAC. The Senate Leadership Fund money was then used to solely fund a Texas PAC, which had spent more than $148 million to support Paxton and attack Talarico.

Musk’s contributions to the Texas PAC exceeded what the Talarico and Paxton campaigns had raised combined throughout the entire campaign cycle. The total was roughly equivalent to advertising spending across all 470 congressional races in the first week of September. NPR calculated that Musk spent about 56 cents in Texas for every dollar raised by a Senate campaign during the previous three months.

Advertising rules that give candidates more favorable rates meant the Texas spending would go less far, particularly amid heavy advertising in the state’s numerous, expensive media markets.

AdImpact reported that at least $700 million in advertising reservations were planned from then until Election Day, with the total likely to rise during the final sprint. The Cook Political Report said roughly three-quarters of that spending was reserved for races that were toss-ups or had some degree of Republican support.

Since Sept. 28, Republicans had more than quadrupled advertising in the Kansas Senate race and tripled spending in the Mississippi Senate contest and House races in Missouri, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Republicans also pulled spending from Senate races in North Carolina and Georgia and from one-time toss-up House seats in Iowa, Ohio and Nebraska that now favored Democrats.

Democrats added millions of dollars in spending to existing competitive Senate races in Ohio, Michigan, Maine, Texas and Alaska while bringing Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi and South Carolina into the mix. House advertising followed the party’s Red to Blue and Districts In Play designations in AR-02, MN-01, MT-01 and KY-06.

Oct. 15 was the last major quarterly campaign-finance deadline, but large campaign contributions and outside expenditures continued to be reported with a one- or two-day turnaround through Election Day. Republicans were defending the White House and the narrow House and Senate majorities they won in 2024. NPR reported that the electorate had soured on President Trump’s agenda amid an unpopular war in Iran, high fuel costs and rising prices. The Democratic Party was also unpopular as a national brand, but candidates in more conservative states including Iowa, Texas, Kansas and Ohio, along with Democratic hopefuls in newly competitive House districts, had risen in polls and fundraising.