“我们需要更多资金”：民主党人私下为中期选举中共和党支出洪流拉响警报

‘We need more cash’: Democrats privately flashing alarms over GOP spending deluge in midterms

2026-09-21T09:00:29.438Z / CNN

Top Democrats across the country are privately warning that they do not have enough cash in the November midterms to capitalize on what could be their party’s best political environment in over a decade and are at serious risk of leaving winnable seats on the table.

These conversations, described by two dozen Democratic sources, have become increasingly fraught in recent weeks as President Donald Trump’s political operation and other GOP super PACs have unleashed a tidal wave of spending into House and Senate battlegrounds that Democrats have been unable to match.

Democrats still feel confident they have enough money to flip the House and have a real chance at the Senate majority. But tensions are rising inside the party about its more limited pot of funds, as members and aides fear they could end up with a narrow majority that makes governing all but impossible.

Across all House and Senate races nationwide, Republicans are set to significantly outspend Democrats overall on advertising over the closing weeks of the midterms, according to data from AdImpact. Republicans have $682 million worth of ads reserved from Monday through Election Day while Democrats have $491 million.

“We need more cash,” said Julie Merz, who runs the House Democrats’ campaign committee, told CNN in a statement, adding that Democrats need to fight for “the largest majority possible.”

Democratic leaders, from members of Congress to governors, have flocked to New York and other donor havens to make last-minute pitches for money, while ramping up pressure on their most valuable donors.

Some of that pressure may be working: Democrats increasingly believe that billionaire Michael Bloomberg will spend big on their behalf in the final weeks of the campaign, according to two people familiar with those discussions.

Senate Democrats believe they’ll be outspent in every one of the competitive races this fall, worried that the late influx of GOP spending could put seats like Iowa or Alaska just out of reach, or give the GOP a real chance at flipping New Hampshire. The Republican money advantage is particularly striking in the Texas Senate race, where the GOP is on track to outspend Democrats more than 8-to-1 through Election Day, according to AdImpact.

In the House, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his team are leaning hard on their members to invest more funds, even discussing whether to withhold coveted committee seats next year from lawmakers who do not pay up, according to multiple people involved in the discussions.

The stakes are high for Jeffries. House Speaker Mike Johnson currently oversees a historically narrow majority, a mathematical reality that has complicated every major GOP priority. It only takes a handful of members to effectively shut down the floor and derail Johnson’s agenda – which has happened over and over again.

“Unless more resources come in in support for House Democrats, we will ultimately leave seats on the table,” Mike Smith, who leads the House Democrats’ largest super PAC, told CNN.

Many Democratic lawmakers and candidates in the tightest races are pleading with Jeffries and party leaders to spend more in the final weeks. That includes some House incumbents who are watching Republicans dump money into races that Democrats believe they’d otherwise win easily, as well as top-tier Senate candidates, like Chris Pappas in New Hampshire, who’s suddenly being outspent, according to multiple sources.

Republicans in New Hampshire have booked $24 million in ad time from Monday through Election Day, compared with $15 million from Democrats.

That money “goes a really long way in a small state like New Hampshire,” an aide to Pappas said. Pappas faces former GOP Sen. John E. Sununu – perhaps their party’s top recruit.

Even former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper – one of Democrats’ best fundraisers and star recruits of the cycle – is warning that Democrats can’t afford to ignore his race.

“Someone asked me what my biggest concern was, and I said that people take this race for granted,” Cooper recently told CNN. “They already have allotted almost $100 million against us. They’ve been pounding us with false negative ads since July, and the race is tightening just as we knew it would.”

There is now fierce debate among Democrats about how – and where – to spend their cash.

At one point this summer, House Democrats even considered abandoning their toughest Florida incumbents, whose seats were redrawn by GOP leaders, given the state’s costly media markets. They later decided to stay put after internal polling came back far better than expected, according to two sources.

House party leaders and members have been privately squabbling about where money can go the furthest in the final stretch.

Some Democrats believe they should take advantage of a favorable political environment to expand the map beyond seats where the party traditionally competes – with some candidates and lawmakers lobbying the party to take gambles in cheaper, rural seats in south Texas, western Montana and northern Maine.

One Democrat in a ruby-red district in upstate New York, the seat now held Rep. Elise Stefanik, is making the case for party funds in a seat that Trump won by close to 20 points. Blake Gendebien, a dairy farmer, believes that rising concerns over diesel prices and Canada tariffs have made the seat unwinnable for Republicans. His biggest pitch to voters, he told CNN, is: “Life’s too expensive.”

Labor union leader and former smokejumper Sam Forstag and his allies are making a hard push for Democrats to spend in another unlikely place: Montana. Emily Marburger, the Montana Democratic Party executive director, told CNN that she is seeing growing anger over tariffs, fuel costs and the beef market that puts the seat firmly in play.

She said Forstag has a real chance but added: “We need support coming this way.”

But there are also Democratic incumbents in more traditional battleground seats, like Vicente Gonzalez in south Texas and Don Davis in North Carolina who are arguing they still need more back-up before Democrats can think about going deeper into places like Montana or Alaska.

“I’m like, the most competitive seat in the House. They should be like doubling down on me,” Gonzalez told CNN, who added he’s being “really thrifty” with the cash he does have left.

As of now, Gonzalez said he is largely matching the GOP dollars against him but he said he’s not easing up: “We’re still within the margin of error in our polling.”

Some in the party are less worried about the financial disparity, citing a nightmare environment for the GOP given Trump’s unpopularity and widespread concerns about affordability. The biggest question now, they say, is whether the sudden GOP cash infusion can stabilize red-tinted seats where Trump won by 10 or more points, which will determine the true size of the battlefield in October.

“We will have the money necessary to defend all of our battleground incumbents and at the same period of time, make sure we flip enough seats to take back the House of Representatives and more,” Jeffries told CNN last week. “Republicans are desperate right now. They have nothing left other than trying to unload tens of millions of dollars on the House, Senate and governor’s races.”

Democratic operatives are also quick to note that the recent influx of GOP ad dollars is not as efficient because advertising is more expensive closer to Election Day. Plus, the influx is coming from super PACs that already have to pay higher rates for advertising than campaigns do.

Still, they want donors to tune in.

“All of these races are within reach, and we have to take the spending seriously,” said a Democratic operative working on a set of House races in red-leaning territory. “I do hope our donors see this and step up.”

But while many in the party, like Texas Senate nominee James Talarico or Iowa gubernatorial nominee Rob Sand, are raising staggering amounts on their own, most Democrats will readily acknowledge they are “getting creamed” by super PAC money, in the words of one senior Democratic aide.

“There will be seats that Democrats could have won but they won’t because there was not enough money to rebut Republican attacks and get out a message,” Phil Gardner, a senior adviser to the centrist Blue Dog Action group, said in an interview.

One Democratic operative who works on statewide races added to CNN: “I still think it will be a great night for us. But I think we’ll all be thinking, ‘what if?’”

A difference between being ‘outspent’ and ‘completely drowned out’

Inside a House Democratic political strategy meeting last week, party leaders made a concerted push to members to pledge more money to the party campaign arm. Jeffries and his team announced they’d spend another $2 million, according to people in the room. Two members who are seeking gavels next year announced big checks – $175,000 and $250,000. Others in the room committed between $10,000 and $50,000, about $3 million in all.

Just a few hundred feet away, Vice President JD Vance rallied a group of House Republicans – a closed-door meeting that ultimately brought in roughly $20 million, according to a person briefed on the fundraising totals.

Rep. Susie Lee, a battleground Democrat from Nevada, is among a group of members pushing hard for the party to create an actual requirement to pay party dues to fund their campaign operation – or lose privileges like sitting on top committees or running for leadership.

“If you want to see a gavel in your hand, you should be feeling some pain and putting some money in and helping us get the majority,” Lee said, noting that endangered incumbents like her are often raising $1 million or more per quarter.

The GOP’s spending advantage is stark in high-profile House contests such as Rep. Mike Lawler’s upstate New York seat, one of the few GOP-held seats that Kamala Harris won in 2024. From Labor Day to Election Day, Republicans have reserved $14.3 million in ad buys compared to Democrats’ $1.7 million, according to AdImpact data.

Both House and Senate Democrats are just two or three weeks away from some of the toughest decisions in the cycle. Right now, Senate Democrats’ main super PAC is set to spend in big target seats like Ohio, Alaska, North Carolina and Iowa, but not Texas. That could change, though, aides said, as party leaders eye polling and GOP spending in the final weeks.

Republicans have especially ramped up in Texas. An ally of Talarico’s campaign said they did not see the disparity as “a five-alarm fire,” noting that the campaign, with its access to lower ad rates, has been able to hold its own on TV. But the ally said there “need to be more resources to close this thing out.”

Lauren French, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority PAC, the top Democratic super PAC in Senate races, said in a recent statement that the group is “watching Texas closely, and will continue to” do so.

“Democrats don’t need to match the spending dollar for dollar but there’s a big difference between being outspent and being completely drowned out,” added Lis Smith, a Democratic operative who’s involved in multiple congressional races this cycle.

That includes Iowa’s open Senate race, where Democrat Josh Turek is set to be outspent by $15 million through election day, and operatives like Smith are particularly worried about last-minute MAGA Inc money.

“We cannot let Republicans completely wipe us out,” she said. “Iowa is completely winnable for Democrats this cycle, it really will come down to the money.”

Republicans, meanwhile, are drawing optimism from the long-awaited arrival of major outside money.

“With all of your help and the help of all the outside groups — AFP, President Trump’s groups are going to be in helping, all kinds of other groups — I am confident that we’re going to win again in 2026,” Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, who represents a Pennsylvania seat in the Lehigh Valley that’s one of Democrats’ biggest target, said at a recent fundraiser, according to audio obtained by CNN.

In a statement to CNN, Arnaud Armstrong, a spokesman for Mackenzie, said the congressman has a “track record of delivering results for the Lehigh Valley and the Poconos” and “commonsense Americans throughout the country are rallying to support Congressman Mackenzie.”