cross-posted from: https://piefed.blahaj.zone/c/us_politics@piefed.blahaj.zone/p/1015136/can-1-billion-buy-victory-in-the-midterm-elections-some-republicans-fear-the-answe
Republicans are entering the final month of the midterm campaign increasingly anxious that the $1 billion at their disposal may not be enough to fend off sweeping losses as the party reckons with President Donald Trump’s unpopularity, persistent cost concerns and the fallout from the war in Iran.
The cash advantage, spread out across a half-dozen groups, is driven largely by the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc., which had nearly $416 million in cash on hand at the end of August and began stepping up its spending on critical races in September.
But that money may have come too late, forcing the president’s group to pay much higher rates because of the shrinking availability of air time. Four Republican Senate campaign officials said groups that reserved advertising time last spring paid much lower rates than MAGA Inc. and its affiliated groups.
Instead, by waiting until September, Trump-connected organizations are sometimes paying more than five times what they would have spent if they acted earlier.
More details in the article.
Don’t forget about the promised $5,000 per adult…
They don’t need to worry about that, the $5,000 will never be sent, and even if it did, it’s $5,000 of our own money Trump is bribing us with - no cost to them.
How can they steal our tax revenue if it’s given away?
Good, a party should not be able to BUY an election.
Also kudos to AP for calling it “Buying” when that’s what it is.
I love it when they spend a fortune, and lose anyway.
Is it really $1b to spend or like $600 million to spend and the rest gets thrown at stuff like lawyers defending these creeps from heinous charges
Ask Elon how that went in Wisconsin.
It’d be cool if all that money was being spent, though. I suppose some of it might be trickling down in local markets?
Better that all these conservative donors release their money into the economy and get nothing back for it, though.
It absolutely can’t…
That’s why the current DNC drained the “victory fund” and started giving it back to the states it was stolen from like 20 months ago.
We could have had a giant pile of hoarded gold too. But we spent it to gain votes, which is the entire point of campaign funds. Neoliberals and Republicans just use it to grift, the vast majority of their donations/bribes are used to get more donations/bribes.
That’s never going to be effective against a party that’s actually trying to win elections.
It was never hard to beat MAGA, the neoliberals just cared more about donations/bribes.
And maga politicians are going to be the last ones to realize their opponent changed, they’ll never be able to accept that progressives aren’t grifters, because they use “everyone’s a grifter” to rationalize their own grifts.
The whole “voters are goldfish” bullshit was just a manufactured excuse to hold off spending those campaign funds as long as possible. They want a big 4 week rush so that so much money is flying around no one can track it, and no matter how much they spend, they’ll be hundreds of millions or even a billion left over after the election. And it is even easier to gift off of it after the election.
The VF was different because Hillary tied it to the DNC thinking neoliberals would never lose it. That’s why Jamie Harrison kept monthly “donations” running thru January when he got the boot from the DNC for, well… Way too much fucked up shit during the four years Biden had appointed him to lead the DNC to really get into.
But then Harrison fucked up so much that trump won and the voting members of the DNC got a chance to pick their own chair.
People would be a shitton more optimistic if they understood what has been happening since 2024 election
