Tag

Featured

Browsing

The leader of an effort among conservative senators to shape the race to elect the next Senate GOP leader — and push the chamber further right — is finally putting his ideas down on paper.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Monday night laid out a series of proposals meant to decentralize power inside the Senate Republican Conference, taking it away from the office that outgoing Leader Mitch McConnell has occupied for nearly two decades.

In a letter sent to Senate Republican offices Monday night and obtained by Playbook, Lee doesn’t explicitly refer to his proposals as demands. But in the context of a hotly contested race to succeed McConnell between Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), John Thune (R-S.D.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the list will clearly be seen as a roadmap for winning the support of the roughly dozen conservative senators whom Lee is believed to be speaking for.

“We have the chance to strengthen the Senate, empower individual members, and ensure that the voices of the American people are heard once more,” Lee wrote.

The proposals largely have to do with Senate and GOP Conference procedures, not with particular policies. In that respect, they are similar to the demands that the hard-right House Freedom Caucus made last year ahead of Kevin McCarthy’s election as House speaker.

McCarthy indulged those demands to win election, including giving conservatives de facto control of the floor through prized spots on the House Rules Committee, and he immediately found it difficult to govern effectively. A small cadre of hard-liners forced him out nine months later.

The Senate has traditionally been more collegial, and more respectful of individual lawmakers’ rights. But frustration has grown over the past two decades as more and more power has been centralized in the party leadership suites, and conservatives have blamed that centralization for bipartisan deals that they despise. Lee has taken to calling it “uniparty” rule.

While Scott is seen as the most solicitous of conservatives in the race to succeed McConnell, his broader support is seen as limited. The more likely scenario is that the conservative bloc becomes a possible kingmaker in a second-ballot race involving Cornyn and Thune, who are seen as more natural heirs to McConnell’s leadership style.

Lee’s proposals can be seen as an initial bid to exert leverage in such a scenario. His ideas include:

Requiring three-fourths of the Conference to agree before the leader can “fill the tree,” an increasingly frequent procedural maneuver by which a majority leader can effectively shut down potential amendments. “This would give individual members more say and restore the Senate as a place of genuine debate and negotiation,” said Lee, who has long pushed for a more open amendment process — along with many other senators of both parties.

Require four weeks of debate and amendment for omnibus appropriations bills, the catchall packages that leaders tend to hash out behind closed doors then push through the House and Senate with minimal time for review or debate. “We know when the funding deadlines are; we set them,” wrote Lee. “We should have no problem setting a schedule for consideration four weeks in advance of that deadline.”

Create a “floor schedule” at the outset of the legislative year for appropriations and stick to it — so that the chambers can fully debate and amend spending bills rather than consider them in a rush during the holidays, as has become customary.

Confine the GOP whip to muscling votes only for positions that have majority support from the Republican Conference. Such a rule, Lee said, “would protect Republican leadership from ever being in the position of having to whip for legislation advancing Democrat priorities, as happens from time-to-time when must pass legislation is up against a critical deadline.”

Lastly, propose “policy goals” and “specific strategies” to achieve them that Republicans should aim for during high-stakes negotiations — a nod to conservatives’ belief that they too often get rolled on priorities such as the debt ceiling and spending caps. Laying those out in advance, he wrote, “would give us a shared vision to rally around.”

Like this content? Sign up for POLITICO’s Playbook newsletter.

Rep. Jerry Nadler called for New York City Mayor Eric Adams to resign after he was charged with accepting illegal foreign contributions and engaging in wire fraud and bribery.

“[T]here are questions of whether the Mayor can continue to effectively lead our City as Mayor at this time. My belief is that the Mayor has lost the ability to effectively lead the City of New York, and therefore, he must resign,” Nadler wrote in a Friday social media post that said Adams was also entitled to his due process rights.

Nadler, the dean of the New York Democratic House delegation, joins Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the only two Democratic members of the delegation to unequivocally call for Adams to step down.

Notably, Nadler is close with former New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who is exploring a run for mayor next year. Another New York Democrat, Rep. Nydia Velazquez, told Spectrum News that if she were in Adams’ shoes, “I would have resigned today.” But she added that the decision was up to him.

Other Democratic lawmakers have held back. Some purple-district Democratic candidates in New York called for Adams to resign, but members of Congress have mostly alluded to Adams’ right to due process.

The two top congressional Democratic leaders, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, stopped short of calling for his resignation, though Schumer said the “charges are serious.” And Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) called the news a “sad and solemn time for our city” but also didn’t call for him to step down.

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — A former Republican candidate for Congress in Florida has been charged with threatening to send a hit squad to kill an opponent in the race, federal authorities said Friday.

William Braddock claimed in a recorded call with a local activist that he would send a Russian and Ukrainian hit squad to kill Anna Paulina Luna during the 2022 primary for a seat in the Clearwater area, the Department of Justice said. Luna went on to win the seat in the general election.

Braddock, 41, was extradited from the Philippines, where he moved after the primary, on a charge of interstate transmission of a true threat to injure another person. He made an initial appearance Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles.

The charges stem from the contentious Republican primary that was heating up after then Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) announced he was not going to run for reelection for his Pinellas County congressional seat.

POLITICO previously reported that a conservative activist recorded Braddock telling her to not support Luna — who had lost to Crist to 2020 — because he had access to assassins.

“I really don’t want to have to end anybody’s life for the good of the people of the United States of America,” he said, according to the recording obtained at the time by POLITICO. “That will break my heart. But if it needs to be done, it needs to be done. Luna is a fucking speed bump in the road. She’s a dead squirrel you run over every day when you leave the neighborhood.”

At the time, Braddock denied to POLITICO via text to discuss the call and said he had not heard the recording. He also suggested the recording “may even be altered and edited.”

A judge later approved a temporary restraining order against him but did not grant a permanent injunction and local authorities declined to pursue charges. Pinellas-Pasco Executive Assistant State Attorney Kendall Davidson told the Tampa Bay Times back in 2021 that probable cause didn’t exist to file charges in the case because Braddock didn’t make the threat directly to Luna or her family and doesn’t have the reasonable ability to carry out the threat.

The Justice Department said that the FBI investigated the case along with the St. Petersburg Police Department as part of the department’s election threats task force. Florida Politics reported a year ago that Braddock had been arrested by authorities in Philippines in conjunction with the FBI. He faces up to five years in prison.

Luna, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, would go on to win the GOP primary in 2022 and win the congressional seat outright. She is running for reelection in the district, which includes a part of the state that experienced the effects of Hurricane Helene. Her office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) defended GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump saying the Russia-Ukraine war must end through negotiation in an interview Sunday rather than counting on a Ukrainian victory.

“I’m not on Russia’s side — but unfortunately the reality of it is that the way the war in Ukraine is going to end is with a negotiated settlement,” Rubio said in an interview with Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And I want, and we want, and, I believe Donald Trump wants, for Ukraine to have more leverage in that negotiation.”

Rubio, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he didn’t know “why we can’t just say that” in regards to Trump’s proposed negotiated deal.

On Wednesday, Trump gave one of his strongest signals so far that he will not fully back Ukraine’s aims, saying Ukraine should have “given up a little bit” at a campaign event in North Carolina. On Friday, after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump supported a negotiated deal, saying, “It takes two to tango, and we will.” And when asked directly, the former president denied two opportunities to say he wanted Ukraine to win during the last presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s supporters have insisted that all of Ukraine’s occupied territory must be restored. But Rubio added that the Biden administration, if pressed on what victory looks like for Ukraine, would also agree that a negotiation is the end result.

“We hope that when that time comes there is more leverage on the Ukrainian side than on the Russian side. That really is the goal here in my mind,” Rubio said. “And I think that’s what Donald Trump is trying to say, but he’s going to say it like a businessman. But Biden won’t even tell us what victory is.”

The Florida senator also danced around supporting Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance for saying that a peaceful settlement could look like “the current line of demarcation between Russia and Ukraine, that becomes like a demilitarized zone” on a podcast recently.

“I think what the deal looks like will be up to the parties when they negotiate it. Obviously, Zelenskyy is not going to come out there and say, from a negotiating standpoint is not going to go out there and predetermine what it looks like,” Rubio said. “So I understand why he wouldn’t want to go out there and define what it looks like at the front end.”

He added, “But I think we, as Americans, the reality of it is we are investing billions of dollars into this effort, and it’s important that as we invest this money into this effort that we tell the American taxpayer, ‘This is what the money’s going toward.’ Ultimately, it’s not endless war, right?”

When pressed on whether he would be comfortable with accepting the demarcation agreement Vance proposed, Rubio dodged, saying he would be comfortable with a negotiated deal that ends hostilities and favors Ukraine, “meaning that they have their own sovereignty.” He reiterated that he would not “prejudge any agreement” when asked if that means he did not support Vance’s claims.

“The most important thing here is that these hostilities end and that Ukraine can go back to rebuilding its economy and people can move back. Millions of people have had to leave that country,” Rubio said. “It’s been devastating to them. But that negotiation is going to be up to them. I just want them to have more leverage than Putin.”

Speaker Mike Johnson is blasting Democrats for being “hypocritical” when it comes to standing with Israel after Iran’s ballistic missile attacks on Tuesday.

The GOP leader kicked off a planned Tuesday speech before the New York Stock Exchange by calling on the Biden administration to send a clear message to Iran that their attacks against Israel won’t be tolerated. He urged the Biden administration “to fully enforce the Iran sanctions on the books and reimpose the U.N. sanctions lest they expire.”

There are widespread concerns that the escalating battle between Israel and Iran could turn into an even broader international conflict.

“We also recognize that it’s hypocritical for the administration to express support for Israel’s defense while continuing to appease the Iranian regime with billions or hundreds of billions of dollars, actually, in sanctions relief,” Johnson said at the speech, while calling for a “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran and Iranian-backed groups.

“President Biden needs to make clear that there will be decisive economic and potential military ramifications for these actions,” he added.

Less than an hour before the speech, Johnson put out a statement that even more directly blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for actions that led to the Tuesday attacks: “Our adversaries are carrying out increasingly dangerous attacks because of Biden and Harris’ weak and failed foreign policy.”

The speaker was originally slated to speak in New York on Republicans’ economic agenda if they hold control of both chambers of Congress and the White House in 2025. And the Iran attack wasn’t the only news that took him off topic — he also addressed disaster relief after Hurricane Helene devastated the Southeast over the weekend.

Multiple lawmakers have called on Congress to return from its preelection break to pass more disaster relief cash, but Johnson appeared to shut the door on those demands Tuesday. He said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has the immediate money that it needs to address the multi-state devastation.

“We’ll be working with our members, with FEMA, with state and local emergency management, to help address the many needs that are out there, and this is going to go on for some time. … Congress has previously provided FEMA with the funds it needs to respond, so we will make sure that those resources are appropriately allocated,” he said.

The short-term funding bill that Congress passed last month extends FEMA’s current funding level of $20 billion, which congressional leaders believe is enough to handle immediate needs. And while President Joe Biden suggested this week that he might request that Congress come back into session to handle the fallout from Hurricane Helene, administration officials told reporters earlier Tuesday that FEMA was in a “good position” to address the hurricane’s destruction.

Johnson did broadly sketch out 2025 priorities for Republicans, hitting similar talking points that he’s focused on before. Those include rolling back Biden-era regulations, extending Trump-era tax cuts for the middle class that are set to expire, cutting spending and vowing to “root out a long list of nonessential jobs throughout the federal bureaucracy.”

Republicans have been quietly planning for months how they would potentially use slim congressional majorities, particularly if Donald Trump wins the White House. A process known as budget reconciliation would allow them to pass some partisan measures without Senate Democratic help, assuming they control both chambers, but that path still comes with strict limits.

“It’s our intention, with a new Senate Republican majority and a Republican president, Republican House, to pursue a policy of fiscal responsibility,” he said.

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the government of Mexico can sue the leading gun manufacturers in the U.S. for allegedly fueling drug cartel violence south of the border.

The justices announced Friday that they will hear the gunmakers’ challenge to an appeals court ruling that would allow the unusual, $10 billion lawsuit to proceed in federal court in Boston.

A district court judge threw the case out two years ago, citing a 2005 law Congress passed to block an increasing number of suits seeking to hold gun manufacturers liable for violence and deaths involving firearms.

However, the Boston-based 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in January said the suit could proceed because the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was aimed solely at limiting suits over the domestic market in weapons and because Mexico had alleged that the companies’ conduct amounted to “aiding and abetting” gun smuggling.

Mexico contends in its suit that over a half million firearms a year made in the U.S. wind up in Mexico, often reaching drug trafficking cartels. The illicit flow of weapons undercuts Mexico’s strict gun laws, the suit claims.

The suit, which targets major U.S. gunmakers including Smith & Wesson, Glock, Colt and Beretta, claims that the companies’ distribution, sales and marketing practices encourage sales to so-called “straw” buyers, who often bring the guns to Mexico or furnish them to others who do.

The gunmakers asked the Supreme Court to take up the case, arguing that it amounts to a backdoor effort to impose gun regulations Congress hasn’t passed or has allowed to expire, such as the assault weapons ban that was in effect from 1994 to 2004.

“Mexico makes no secret that it abhors this country’s approach to firearms, and that it wants to use the American court system to impose domestic gun controls on the United States that the American people themselves would never accept through the ordinary political process,” the companies’ attorneys wrote.

The firearms manufacturers also say the suit is flawed because those who traffic the weapons into Mexico are committing “multiple independent criminal acts” that don’t involve the companies.

The gun-related case was included Friday on a broader list of cases the Supreme Court announced it would take up in its upcoming term, which begins Monday. Other cases the justices agreed to hear include a dispute about permits to store nuclear waste in west Texas, a criminal false statements case involving former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley’s nephew, and a legal fight related to the Food and Drug Administration’s power to regulate vaping.

The newly added cases are likely to be scheduled for argument early next year.

In separate orders Friday, the Supreme Court turned down an effort by power companies to block a Biden administration rule to limit emissions of mercury and other toxic metals from power plants, and the court rejected a bid from Republican-led states to halt a rule to reduce methane emissions during energy production. No justice noted any dissent from either order.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson refused Sunday to condemn comments from former President Donald Trump and his family that suggest Democrats were behind assassination attempts on Trump.

“I don’t think they’re saying that the Democratic Party tried an assassination attempt. I think what they’re alluding to is what they’ve all been saying. They have got to turn the rhetoric down,” Johnson said in an interview with host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.” “For years now, the leading Democrats in this country, the highest elected officials and the current nominee for president have gone out and said that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, that the republic will end if he’s reelected.”

Johnson said he needed more context since he had not watched the rally Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania — and instead deflected to talking about the “massive crowd” that Trump was pleased with. But the speaker added that Democrats calling Trump a “threat to democracy” is “absolute nonsense, and they have incited dangerous people to do dangerous things.”

“We need everybody on all sides to turn the rhetoric down and let’s have a debate about the records of these candidates, not the rhetoric,” Johnson added. “Let’s talk about the policies, not the personalities.”

Stephanopoulos pressed Johnson on whether he supported comments that Eric Trump, the former president’s son, made at the Butler rally. “They tried to smear us. They came after us. They impeached him twice, and then, guys, they tried to kill him. They tried to kill him, and it’s because of the Democratic Party. They can’t do anything right,” Eric Trump said at the rally.

The host also asked what other context Johnson could need and if this counts as that type of rhetoric.

“I’m not going to parse the language of what people say at rallies,” Johnson said. “I could give you pages and pages of crazy comments by the leading Democrats in this country. That’s not what this is about.”

Johnson, a former constitutional lawyer, was also one of the architects in the House behind arguing against certifying the 2020 election results before he was speaker. When asked if he could say unequivocally that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election — after Trump’s running mate JD Vance declined during the vice presidential debate to say if Biden won — Johnson deflected.

“This is the game that is always played by mainstream media with leading Republicans. It’s a gotcha game,” Johnson said. “You want us to litigate things that happened four years ago when we’re talking about the future. We’re not going to talk about what happened in 2020. We’re going to talk about 2024, and how we’re going to solve the problems for the American people.”

Stephanopoulos added that Trump regularly states he won the 2020 election and baselessly claims that it was rigged.

“I’m the speaker of the House. I work with the president of the United States all the time. Joe Biden has been the president for four years,” Johnson said. “There’s not a question about this, OK? It’s already been done and decided, and this is a gotcha game that’s played and I’m not playing it.”

As for what Johnson will do on Jan. 6 of 2025 — if he is speaker and Kamala Harris has won the election — Johnson said he is going to “follow the Constitution.”

“Article 2 of the Constitution is clear. Congress has a specific role, and we must fulfill it,” Johnson said. “I’ve made a career defending the Constitution. I always have, and I’ve demonstrated over and over that we are going to do the right and lawful thing. So you can count on that. We’re going to do our job.”

Later on Sunday, Johnson responded with a clip from the interview on X, and criticized Stephanopoulos for not asking any questions about Hurricane Helene, immigration or the economy. “No wonder no one trusts the media,” Johnson wrote.

Senate Republican spending is heavily concentrated in just a handful of races — a distribution that doesn’t match the reality of the battleground map.

That dynamic is the result of poor fundraising from some key candidates and the party’s reliance on fickle big donors to close the gap. The playing field is ripe with inviting targets, but the advertising from the GOP and its allies is heavily lopsided instead of spread across them. And some of the places where they’re more involved are not the most obvious pickup opportunities.

Instead, a combination of individual candidate strengths and weaknesses, donors’ preferences, and targeting by special interests has created a highly uneven playing field and a clear picture of a party that’s fallen badly behind in individual fundraising.

Among the disparities:

Republicans and their allies are spending more money in a single state, Pennsylvania, than in Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona combined.
In fact, the GOP is spending 2.3 times as much to help former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick oust a strong Democratic incumbent in Pennsylvania as in Michigan, a similarly purple state that has an open seat.
More money is going into defending Sen.
Ted Cruz
’s Texas seat, which is considered in play but not highly at risk, than in three Senate races in presidential battlegrounds.
In Arizona, Rep.
Ruben Gallego
(D-Ariz.) alone is spending more than all the Republican advertisers, including outside groups, combined.
GOP super PACs and mega-donors are putting more money into former Gov. Larry Hogan’s uphill Senate bid in blue-leaning Maryland than in the Sun Belt targets.

National Republicans would love to seriously contest all of their eight top offensive battlegrounds, and party leaders didn’t set out to create such a heavily uneven map. But races don’t just attract money based on how winnable they are.

“In the case of McCormick and Hogan there are personal reasons why they are attracting the kinds of outside spending that they are,” said Scott Jennings, a longtime adviser to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. For example: “I know this person, or I love the kinds of politics that Larry Hogan represents.”

Both parties are still pouring money in for the final weeks of the campaign, and a top Senate GOP super PAC has committed millions of dollars in recent days to help close the gap in the Midwest. The price to air ads fluctuates widely state by state, and Pennsylvania is among the most expensive, justifying some of the heavy price tag there.

Still, the shocking disparities could heavily influence Republicans’ success in November — and raise questions about the size of the majority they’re pursuing.

Republicans need to flip only two seats to guarantee control of the Senate, and they already have one, West Virginia, in the bag. Their prime targets, the red states of Montana and Ohio, are fully funded: There’s virtually no air time left for super PACs in Montana. In Ohio, allies of Republican Bernie Moreno are already outspending Democrats by more than $40 million, thanks in part to a $30 million investment by a crypto industry super PAC.

If Republicans can win either of those seats, ousting Sen. Jon Tester in Montana or Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Senate control is almost certainly theirs. But they entered the cycle eager to flip a slew of other battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada — all places Donald Trump is contesting and energizing the GOP base. They even landed a star recruit who single-handedly put Maryland in play.

But Democratic spending has been overwhelming in some key states.

In Nevada and Arizona especially, the GOP has a more than two-to-one spending deficit, and some party operatives are privately feeling increasingly dismal about their prospects. And the donor dollars flowing into a blue state like Maryland or against a veteran incumbent like Sen. Bob Casey in Pennsylvania underscores the disconnect between donors’ preferences about candidates and other states that may be more primed to flip.

“Donors don’t think like political strategists. They think like donors. And they try to shape where the party is going,” said one Republican operative involved in Senate races, granted anonymity to speak candidly about financial motivations.

Pennsylvania: Republican money pours into helping a former hedge fund CEO oust a tough incumbent

Pennsylvania, a highly competitive swing state, was always going to be a top Senate race.

And McCormick was a prized recruit for the GOP. As the former CEO of one of the world’s largest hedge funds, he has impeccable connections in the finance industry. He’s helped some of the party’s donors grow their wealth during his time on Wall Street, and now they are giving him a major boost.

His allies started a super PAC, Keystone Renewal, funded by a nearly comprehensive list of GOP mega-donors, from the Ricketts to the DeVoses to the Uihleins. As of Oct. 2, it had spent more than $42 million on the Senate race.

Meanwhile, the Senate Leadership Fund, the GOP super PAC closely aligned with McConnell, is spending more than $45 million on ads for McCormick. The outside spending has propelled pro-McCormick advertising in the state to a massive $113 million from Labor Day to Election Day.

Democrats, in comparison, are spending a collective $81.6 million during that period, with $21 million of that coming from Casey’s campaign.

Republicans know McCormick will need every possible minute of advertising to get his message out in Pennsylvania on the crowded and pricey airwaves during a presidential election year.

The son of a former governor, Casey has won six statewide elections in his career. First elected to the Senate in 2006, he won his three races by double-digits or close to it. Even some Republicans acknowledge he is “political royalty” in the state and will be hard to beat.

“Casey’s tough to knock off. I’ve known him for 30 years,” Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) said. Casey could be dragged down by his association with national Democrats, he said, but McCormick will still need as much money as he can amass: “Outside of that he’s a really nice guy, and that’s how Pennsylvania perceives him. So Dave’s got to really crack it to win.”

Sun Belt: Democrats are drowning Republicans in TV spending, and it’s even worse than it looks at first

Other states that on paper look like better offensive targets than Pennsylvania have received only a sliver of that kind of spending.

Consider Nevada: First-term Sen. Jacky Rosen and her allies are outspending Republican Sam Brown and his supporters by a more than 2:1 ratio from Labor Day on, $45 million to $19 million. Brown has booked only $3 million in ad buys from his campaign compared to Rosen’s $12.5 million.

Hidden behind the overall TV spending numbers is a reality even worse for Republicans in many states.

Candidates can purchase TV ad time at cheaper rates, sometimes significantly discounted, than super PACs or outside groups. But most Republican candidates are raising far less and relying heavily on super PACs to close the gap — meaning much of the pro-GOP spending is far less efficient, seen by fewer voters for every dollar spent.

Democratic Senate candidates have been raising gargantuan sums of money that they’re then able to put into the airwaves. In Ohio, Brown announced last week that he hauled in $30.6 million in the third quarter. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who is running for Michigan’s open seat, brought in $18 million. Gallego raised more than $21 million in Arizona.

Gallego’s campaign alone has spent or reserved nearly $25 million from Labor Day onward, part of a stunning advertising gap: Democrats have booked $65.7 million, and Republican Kari Lake and her allies have only $23 million.

“It pretty much shows you sort of where the political market believes this race is going,” Kirk Adams, a Republican former Arizona state House speaker, said of the lack of spending by GOP groups. “The real metric to look at is the money they put into Arizona versus the money they put into other contested races. And that probably tells you your story right there.”

Lake, who ran a fire-and-brimstone MAGA-focused race for governor in 2022, has not endeared herself to some key names in the GOP establishment.

“Republicans on the ground here are feeling more optimistic about almost every other race, including legislative races,” Adams said. “That optimism does not include the Senate race.”

Maryland: GOP donors pour money into an uphill battle

Hogan’s Maryland Senate bid is among the most well-supported, with $30 million in GOP TV spending after Labor Day. Democrats are at $17 million.

Hogan’s air domination is powered by the Maryland’s Future super PAC, which is flush with cash from many of the same names that seeded McCormick’s PAC. That group has dropped more than $19 million on ads so far.

That means more GOP dollars are being spent in Maryland, a state that Joe Biden won by more than 30 points in 2020, than in the presidential battlegrounds of Nevada or Arizona.

“You see opportunities there in Maryland that I think are real,” Sen. Thom Tilis (R-N.C.) said. “I think it’s smart. They’re looking at analytics and making decisions that are the right decisions so far.”

Other Republicans are also leaning on bespoke super PACs formed to aid them, though Hogan’s and McCormick’s are more well-funded. Tim Sheehy in Montana and former Rep. Mike Rogers in Michigan also have dedicated outside groups supporting their Senate bids. That allows donors to cut large checks to help a specific candidate, but it also means less control for groups like the Senate Leadership Fund, which is meant to be a party clearinghouse and can direct resources more strategically across the country.

“The decentralization of Republican fundraising is a real thing that is happening, and it will happen even more next cycle,” said one GOP strategist involved in Senate races, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It incentivizes candidates to build their own ecosystems.”