The Democratic Party heads into the midterms with generic congressional ballot polling and historical precedent on its side. It is nevertheless worried that the majorities it so desperately wants could still slip away.
Politico reported this week that Democratic strategists increasingly fear their favorable political environment could be overwhelmed by a Republican cash stockpile that dwarfs their own.
Federal Election Commission filings through the end of June show the three main GOP national committees and their affiliated congressional super PACs sitting on a combined $657 million. Their Democratic counterparts held $334 million. Add President Trump's MAGA Inc. super PAC, which reported more than $400 million on hand several weeks earlier, and the Republican reserve runs to more than three times what Democratic Party committees and congressional super PACs can muster between them.
That gap matters more this cycle than it would have in any previous one. On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled in NRSC v. FEC that federal limits on coordinated party spending violate the First Amendment, overturning a 2001 precedent and freeing national party committees to spend without ceiling in direct coordination with their candidates. Committee money that once had to be routed through independent expenditures can now be aimed straight at a race.
Democratic strategist Morgan Jackson, an adviser to former Gov. Roy Cooper's Senate campaign in North Carolina, cal
