The top Senate GOP super PAC is going all in on Pennsylvania.

The Senate Leadership Fund, a group with close ties to Mitch McConnell, is laying down a massive $24 million ad buy to help Republican Dave McCormick in his bid to unseat incumbent Bob Casey. It will run for a month beginning Sept. 3 and include broadcast and cable TV, radio and digital components.

The investment is a sign of confidence in Pennsylvania, the first state where the super PAC has reserved air time outside of the more conservative states of Montana and Ohio. So far, the group is following the plans telegraphed by McConnell in the spring, when he said Republicans would play in Pennsylvania, Montana, Ohio and Maryland.

SLF and its allied group American Crossroads have placed $82.5 million in Ohio ad buys for September through late October. In Montana, those two groups have reserved a combined $47.9 million.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee revealed its first round of fall ad buys last week. Its independent expenditure arm is booking airtime in Ohio, Nevada, Michigan and Arizona, while the committee itself is planning joint ad buys with candidates in other states.

McCormick already has his own dedicated group, the Keystone Renewal PAC, which has booked more than $30 million in ads to boost him throughout the summer and fall, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.

GOP senators are increasingly publicizing their battle over potential rules changes ahead of the Republican leadership elections, with conservative Sen. Mike Lee doubling down on his push for term limits and clapping back at proposals from Sen. Thom Tillis.

In a letter sent to Senate Republicans on Wednesday, Lee (R-Utah) said the conference has a choice this year to either “further democratize the way we do business” or “further consolidate power in the Leader and weaken the ability of individual members to fully exercise their rights and duties.”

It’s a direct response to Tillis (R-N.C.), who on Sunday sent a letter outlining his own ideas for rules changes. A number of his proposals would give the next GOP leader more power over issues like committee assignments and appointing the chair of Senate Republicans’ campaign arm. He argued the changes could help conference priorities and messaging by being better aligned with GOP leadership.

Suffice to say, Lee disagreed.

“It is a strength of our conference — not a weakness — that we represent a diversity of viewpoints while generally agreeing on a conservative philosophy,” Lee wrote. “Allowing our differences to play-out in the legislative process is the best way to determine consensus and build unity.”

The back-and-forth is the latest example of growing tensions within the Republican conference over not only who will lead them, but what powers that person should have. With Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell planning to step away from his post later this year, conservatives are pressuring his potential successors to commit to a lofty list of rules changes, such as term limits and revamping committee assignments. And while both Tillis and Lee are keeping their written remarks civil, both have become emblematic of a larger and entrenched rift in the conference.

And many senators see the House Republican conference’s chaos this term as a potential warning sign. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy relinquished key powers to appease his conservative opponents before that group booted him nine months later, causing months of governing crises including a three-week battle to replace him with Speaker Mike Johnson. Some senators are worried that proposals like Lee’s could mean similar — if less dramatic — trouble in their own chamber.

Tillis in his letter said he is not outright “advocating” for the rules changes but instead offering “food for thought.”

Tillis, as well as McConnell himself, have been among those who have vocally criticized the idea of imposing term limits on the next GOP leader, arguing it weakens the conference’s standing by impacting fundraising capabilities. Lee maintained his support for the proposed change in his Wednesday letter.

“While it is technically true that the Leader is open to challenge every two years, the reality is that the power of indefinite tenure disincentivizes any real effort to mount such a challenge,” Lee wrote, arguing it was generally too much of a “risk” for individual senators to challenge a leader with no term limits.

And Lee slapped down the idea of expanding the leader’s power over appointments for committees or the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Tillis had suggested the NRSC chair could be appointed by the leader but ratified by the full conference — similar to how Senate Democrats operate.

“The will of the conference is best carried out by the members who serve in it, not by a top-down management system,” Lee wrote.

Lee did find some common ground with Tillis, specifically on proposals that would boost access and visibility into the amendments process for rank-and-file members. But the Utah senator said he’d also want to prevent leadership from jamming up the amendments log via a tactic often called “filling the tree.” When the “tree” is filled, it makes it harder for rank-and-file members to get their amendments through.

And generally, Lee applauded Tillis for being part of the discussion on rules changes. The leadership elections aren’t until November, so there are still months to go as members butt heads over potential rules changes — with no guarantee that any would actually be adopted.

Still, Lee said he hopes the talks keep going.

“I want to thank Sen. Tillis for formalizing a set of proposals that should serve to continue the discussion, and ask that the conference begin setting aside dedicated time to do so,” Lee wrote. “I look forward to the continued dialogue.”

It’s not common to see a primary challenger get a warm welcome on Capitol Hill after ousting an incumbent. But that’s exactly what Westchester County Executive George Latimer is likely to experience with most of the House Democratic caucus next year.

Various House Democrats from different factions of the caucus predicted on Wednesday that Latimer, who has deep relationships within the party after his years in state and local government, could fit right in after toppling Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.). It helps that Bowman had rubbed some Democratic colleagues the wrong way lately with off-color commentary and antics like triggering a fire alarm last year.

“I think George will be a great member,” said Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), who was neutral in the primary and served with Latimer in the state Assembly. “Obviously, we have to get through the general. … I’m also thankful to have been able to serve with Jamaal Bowman. He is our colleague, and his voice had a role in our caucus as well.”

Latimer trounced Bowman, a member of the progressive Squad, in Tuesday’s primary after a deluge of outside money and Bowman’s personal controversies narrowed his path to victory. Bowman’s seat was one of the top targets this year for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, whose outside spending in the race through its super PAC made it the most expensive primary in congressional history.

“Look, when any person wins — and there’s been various members that have been challenged previously, and new members have won — they come in and they become part of this team,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, which endorsed Bowman in his primary. Democrats’ primary goal, Meeks added, remains “winning the majority back so Hakeem Jeffries is the speaker.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) predicted only “maybe a couple of people” would have hard feelings toward Latimer: “People come here after winning primary fights all the time, and he’ll be judged for who he is when people meet him.”

Although it’s unclear exactly which ideological lane Latimer might occupy in the House Democratic caucus, one top liberal didn’t rule out letting him into their bloc should he seek admission to the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

“We have a criteria, and if he meets the criteria, I don’t see why not,” said Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.). “Obviously, anyone who wants to be a progressive in Congress is welcome in the caucus.”

Even so, some House Democrats have speculated Latimer would likely become a more moderate member after he got endorsed by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), the co-chair of the bipartisan and centrist Problem Solvers Caucus.

Rep. Troy Nehls said he’s no longer wearing a badge pin awarded to infantrymen or Special Forces who fought in active combat after many of his own colleagues have accused him of “stolen valor.”

Speaking to reporters outside of votes, Nehls said he wasn’t wearing the pin “because you guys are vultures.”

“Now that I don’t wear that, what are you going to talk to me about?” the Texas Republican, wearing a tie of former President Donald Trump hugging the American flag and Trump’s gold sneakers, said. “You guys are gonna be bored out of your minds.”

NOTUS first reported in June that Nehls continued to wear the Combat Infantryman Badge pin despite CBS News finding it had been revoked in 2023. Nehls made what he said would be his “final written comment” on the matter Tuesday, asking how he could be one of just 47 of 142,596 pins rescinded over the last 20 years.

“The American people know just how disgusting the media is — the dishonest media,” Nehls said during his lengthy remarks to reporters. “I know what I’ve done, and I certainly don’t have to justify myself to you guys.”

Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.), a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general, said he was among the decorated combat veterans in Congress who were concerned about Nehls wearing the CIB. Bergman said, however, that he was not considering an ethics complaint.

“We’re not going to waste any time on Troy Nehls,” he said in an interview. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry. You make your own bed, lay in it.”

Other veteran lawmakers urged Republicans to address the matter internally.

“I’m going to let the Republicans handle it,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who served in the Marine Corps. “They certainly should”

Joe Gould and Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.

House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers got a clear warning Tuesday from the chamber’s top two GOP leaders: If you don’t fix your data privacy bill, it’s on track to die in your committee.

McMorris Rodgers followed by announcing that she would advance the bill anyway.

The Washington State Republican’s decision to buck the advice of Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) threatens to set up an unusual clash between party leaders and a committee chair over a bill that McMorris Rodgers has deemed a high priority before her retirement at the end of this term.

Two Republicans with knowledge of the matter, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said leadership conveyed to McMorris Rodgers during an in-person meeting on Tuesday that they have concerns about her privacy measure — issues that are fixable, but risk tanking the bill if they go unaddressed.

Both Republicans said that McMorris Rodgers was warned members of her own committee are opposed to her bill, and that while some are prepared to vote for it, they’re reluctant to.

Among the House GOP concerns with McMorris Rodgers’ bill: its call for a “private right of action” giving individuals the power to sue tech companies for damages. Other Republicans have private qualms about the breadth of the bill, including its impact on data collection, particularly as it pertains to artificial intelligence.

That’s on top of other questions about the bill’s effect on law enforcement and public safety.

McMorris Rodgers replied to GOP leaders on Tuesday by making clear she would be moving ahead, touting the bill’s importance — particularly her insistence on stronger online privacy protections for children. She also argued that the party has worked on this legislation for too long, the two Republicans familiar with the matter said.

A third Republican familiar with the matter characterized the meeting as a “good discussion where everyone agreed about the importance of privacy legislation,” adding that the only commitment made was to continue to work on the bill. In that spirit, this Republican added, a committee markup is simply the next step.

However, the other two Republicans said McMorris Rodgers’ response was perceived as a rebuff of her own leaders’ warning.

Critics of the bill are predicting that McMorris Rodgers hopes to pressure her committee members to vote unanimously for the bill, even as some GOP lawmakers privately urge leadership to protect them from having to take any vote.

While data privacy protection is broadly popular with members of both parties — who agree the government should establish federal guidelines to protect consumers as companies continue to collect data online — McMorris Rodgers’ struggle to get the bill to the floor is a clear sign that effectively legislating on the issue won’t be easy.

Even before she rolled out a new version of the bill late last week, a top GOP leadership aide had worked to assure other top Republican staffers that the bill would not make it to the floor in its current form. Yet McMorris Rodgers’ revised version of the legislation did little to alleviate the logjam.

Only 21.4 percent of mid-level Senate staffers are people of color — about 20 points lower than the proportion across the general U.S. population — according to a new report on staff diversity in the Senate.

The study, courtesy of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, dissects racial representation in mid-level jobs in Senate offices, career pathways for Black staffers and confronts issues with data availability.

One other critical finding in the report: Black mid-level staffers are less likely than other racial groups to see internal promotions to top positions.

Both parties in Congress have a perennial problem when it comes to building and retaining a staff with comparable levels of diversity to the country’s population. Democrats as a whole still employ more mid-level staff of color than Republicans, though, according to the report. Here’s a more in-depth breakdown of the study’s findings:

MID-LEVEL STAFF

The 21.4 percent of mid-level Senate staffers who are people of color, according to the report, falls well short of that group’s 41.1 percent of the total U.S. population.

Mid-level posts can pave the way for staff to move into more prominent roles and serve as a pipeline for senior positions in Senate offices. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which has been studying staff diversity since 2015, defines mid-level or “pathway” staff as all deputy chiefs of staff, senior advisers, legislative assistants, counsels and press secretaries/deputy communications directors working in senators’ personal offices.

“Employing a pathway staff that lacks diversity could limit the opportunity to employ a diverse top staff. Many congressional top staff job advertisements also specify a preference for candidates with previous Capitol Hill experience,” wrote the study’s authors, LaShonda Brenson and Kimberly Victor. “Diversity in the pipeline would ensure that more staff of color meet the preference for Capitol Hill experience.”

Senators of color — from both parties — employ people of color as mid-level staff at rates more reflective of the U.S. population than the Senate as a whole, according to the report.

When breaking it down by age group, senators under 60 years old employ the highest percentage of mid-level staff of color in their offices, comprising 29.6 percent of staff of color in those mid-level posts across the Senate.

Senators aged 60 to 69 employed the fewest at 14.8 percent of the total mid-level staffers of color. The staffs of the oldest senators, those older than 70, reported employing 19.5 percent of mid-level staffers of color.

BLACK STAFF PROMOTIONS

None of the Black staffers in top jobs as of January 2020 were still in those jobs as of June 2023, according to the new study, and all six Black top staffers included in the October 2023 report did not rise to those jobs via internal promotion.

In this area, the study built on a 2023 study by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies on top staffers in the Senate, which showed disparities in recruitment and retention of pathway staff.

Instead, those staffers moved Senate offices to be hired in their top roles. In contrast, during the same period the report shows that white, AAPI and Latino top staff were promoted internally.

“For African Americans in particular, representation as pathway staff does not lead to similar levels of representation as Senate top staff,” the report says.

SENATE GOP LACKING DATA

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies pursued their own data by contacting and recontacting staffers directly to collect, confirm or correct information for the report.

While Senate Democrats have conducted their own self-reported diversity studies for the last seven years, there is not comparable data for the chamber’s Republicans.

Federal law requires that employers with more that 100 employees both collect and disclose racial and gender demographic information of their employees to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But the Senate has exempted itself from that law.

Montana Republican Tim Sheehy is getting some key backup in his bid to oust Sen. Jon Tester.

More Jobs, Less Government, a super PAC with ties to Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), is launching a $4 million TV and digital ad buy Wednesday that will run for about a month. A radio component will begin July 10. The campaign has four spots that yoke Tester to both President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Tester has one of the tallest political tasks this cycle: Win reelection in a state that Donald Trump won handily in 2016 and 2020 and is likely to win again. To pull it off, Tester will need to create some distance from the national Democratic Party and its unpopular presidential nominee. Republicans are seeking to use Tester’s party affiliation to sink his reelection bid.

The super PAC’s internal polling shows why: In an early June poll of 500 likely voters conducted by Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, Sheehy led Tester 46 to 43 percent, with the Libertarian candidate pulling 4 percent. That’s within the margin of error of 4.38 percentage points. In a two-way race, Sheehy and Tester polled evenly at 48 percent.

Tester fared better than a generic Democrat, with voters saying they preferred a Republican to a Democratic senator 52 percent to 40 percent. But Trump also led Biden in Montana, 54 percent to 36 percent.

The new spots attempt to nationalize the race. They warn that Tester supports Schumer as Senate majority leader and endorsed Biden for president. One uses footage of Biden praising Tester and another features video of Tester expressing confidence in Biden’s mental acuity.

“Jon Tester pretends to be a moderate when he’s campaigning for reelection in Montana, but in Washington, D.C., he votes with Joe Biden 95 percent of the time and wants to keep left-wing New York Senator Chuck Schumer in control of the U.S. Senate,” said Andy Surabian, the lead strategist for the super PAC.

More Jobs, Less Government was up with a seven-figure buy earlier this year slamming Tester’s opposition to the border wall.

Sheehy could use the outside help. Tester and allied groups have been greatly outspending Republicans on ads over the past two months. Since April 1, Democrats have spent $21.6 million, while Sheehy and his GOP supporters have spent $12.8 million, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.

Rep. Bob Good is pressing forward on his demands for a recount in his primary race, as he trails his GOP opponent John McGuire by 370 votes.

The chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus confirmed his recount plans to POLITICO a week after the polls closed in his primary. McGuire prematurely claimed victory that night, before any election officials had declared a winner. The AP has not called the race because of the impeding recount — while the results are unlikely to shift enough for Good to overtake McGuire’s lead, the AP noted it could be possible.

Asked in the Capitol hallways if he plans to seek a recount, Good (R-Va.) replied: “Yes.” He had an equally brief answer when asked if he had the money to pay for it: “Yes.”

While Good is within the threshold needed to request a recount, he is just shy of the 0.5 percentage-point-or-less requirement that would force a government-funded recount. Instead, he has to pay for it using his own campaign money.

Good signaled he would be willing to respect the results of the recount, though he’s cast doubt about the integrity of the race in interviews. Election officials have firmly dismissed those claims.

“We just want an accurate reflection of the intent of the voters who legitimately, and legally, participated. Everybody should want that,” Good told reporters. “We intend to pursue that. And we’ll respect that when that does happen.”

Many national Republicans have been trying to reassure voters that they’re not working to curb reproductive rights, especially when it comes to in vitro fertilization. Rep. Matt Rosendale is complicating that in the House.

The Montana Republican has proposed an amendment to a measure funding the Pentagon that describes IVF as “morally wrong.”

“While I feel for couples that are unable to have children, the practice of IVF is morally wrong, and I refuse to support any legislation that condones its use,” Rosendale said in a statement. “If you are opposed to abortion, you should be opposed to the practice of IVF.”

The House Rules Committee is currently mulling which amendments to consider as part of floor debate on the defense spending bill, so the amendment from the retiring Montana conservative may never get a vote. He’s floated similar amendments on other bills without securing floor action.

However, Rosendale’s effort is a stark break from most elected Republicans. All Senate Republicans issued a rare joint statement voicing support for IVF access — though they later opposed advancing a Democratic measure to enshrine that into law. Former President Donald Trump has also said he “strongly support[s] the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby.”

Generally, Republicans have struggled to iterate a straightforward policy position on the practice, which presents moral, medical and legal quandaries. Many conservatives are torn between their desire to help parents deal with infertility and their belief in fetal personhood, and have struggled to articulate exactly which laws and policies should govern that area of health care.

Alice Miranda Ollstein contributed to this report.