GOP gets new midterm spending weapon from SCOTUS

GOP gets new midterm spending weapon from SCOTUS

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.