During a political campaign, one can expect candidates and their teams to stretch the truth a bit, contort it to suit their needs. That is understandable as they are selling a product just like a detergent or a car. It is up to the consumer to decide how truthful the claims are and how much is just puffery. There are two indicators that give one an insight into the truth, into whether the campaign is failing or succeeding. The first is where candidates and surrogates are deployed. The second is where the money is spent. By both of these measures, the Republicans are already giving up on certain races.
The mid-terms create a situation where the president is not on the ballot but has a huge interest in the outcome. So, he is engaged. If the Republicans were looking forward to the election results, they would deploy him to places like California and New York to flip Democratic districts to his party. If they thought they were in a tight race, the president would be spending all his time in swing districts, the marginal constituencies where the Congressional majority is decided. If they expect things to go badly for them, they will send him to the places they need to make sure of, the districts where the Republican Party could lose seats that they should be winning based on demographics.
Mr. Trump is traveling this week to Ohio, Alaska, Nevada and Georgia. These are areas that Mr. Trump carried with some ease in 2024. That he has to campaign there shows the GOP strategists know they are in trouble. With Mr. Trump, there is another consideration. It could be that they are sending him places where he cannot do much damage to turning out the base. With his approval ratings in the low 30s%, he can cost votes as easily, or more easily, as he can win them.
The other factor is where are they spending the money they have — and they have a lot, hundreds of millions. What the party is doing is pulling money from places where they assess the race is lost and moving it to places where it might make a difference to the outcome. They are not pulling it from swing districts to go after Democratic seats in New York or Chicago. They are pulling it from those districts to shore up their heartland.
The New York Times said on Saturday, “Leadership Fund, all but ceded the first Republican-held seat of the election this week, moving money out of a district in Nebraska where Representative Don Bacon is retiring. Mr. Bacon occupies the most Democratic-leaning seat of any Republican in the House.”
In the same report, the paper noted that the GOP is not spending in the North Carolina Senate race. Thom Tillis is retiring, and Democrat Roy Cooper has won the governorship there twice. North Carolina may be conservative, but Mr. Cooper is a tolerable Democrat to voters in that state.
The NYT added, “The Republican triage efforts also include withdrawing all of the remaining funds that had been reserved for targeting two Democrats running for re-election, Representatives Greg Landsman of Ohio and Kristen McDonald Rivet of Michigan, according to the three people with direct knowledge. One of the people said other seats were under active consideration to be abandoned as soon as this week.”
In addition, the paper noted, “Officials with the two super PACs decided to cancel all remaining advertising booked for Representative Thomas H. Kean Jr. of New Jersey and Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa over the weekend after internal G.O.P. polling had showed their re-election chances dimming.” The report did not name the two PACs.
There is one money fact that is often overlooked. Fox News reports that the Republicans have outspent the Democrats by $400 million this campaign. And they are losing anyway.
Money does not vote. People vote. Money is very useful in a campaign, but last-minute spending is less effective than spending to build a turn-out machine six months out. The law of diminishing returns also plays a role. It is a law of economics that the first dollar spend has great marginal value while the 400 millionth dollar may have no impact at all. Quite simply, the GOP is spending more money than the system can absorb efficiently.
As things stand now, the Democrats will win the House with 228 seats and the US Senate with 52. That is merely based on where the Republicans have given up.