Instead, Republicans are growing fearful that Democratic candidates are receiving such little scrutiny that they could steamroll to victory, and to the Senate majority, mostly by raising huge amounts of money that fund smart media campaigns on TV and social media.

“The more voters see their candidates, the worse off they are. This is a very weak crop of recruits,” said Jesse Hunt, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee…

Part of the GOP frustration comes from the steadily shrinking ranks of local media outlets covering congressional elections — a trend that has only worsened with the collapse of ad revenue in the pandemic, leading to further newsroom layoffs.

That phenomenon gets combined with a national news corps that is heavily focused on covering coronavirus stories, limiting the number of stories from key Senate battlegrounds. GOP strategists feel that their incumbents still have to face the Capitol press corps every day that the Senate is in session, while the Democratic challengers carefully choose their public appearances.