Democrats Have a Massive Cash Problem

Democrats seem to have lots of advantages heading into the midterms. Trump's popularity is low. We're at war with Iran which means gas prices are high and some American service members have been killed. And yet, Democrats are still worried because, as Politico points out, they have a massive cash problem.

Democrats are apprehensive that Republicans’ massive outside spending advantage could erase the prospects of a blue wave heading into the midterms.

The three main GOP party committees and their two caucus-aligned super PACs reported $657 million cash on hand at the end of June, according to the latest filings with the Federal Election Commission. That’s nearly double the $334 million held by their Democratic rivals.

So the GOP has double the money of the Democrats? No, it's actually worse than that.

And those disparities don’t even account for the largest potential GOP money bomb, the MAGA Inc. super PAC linked to President Donald Trump, which reported over $400 million in the bank as of a few weeks ago. Democrats have no equivalent to MAGA Inc.

In total, the funds in Trump’s super PAC, the GOP party committees and the GOP caucus super PACs are more than three times the total money in the Democratic party committees and caucus super PACs.

Democrats have been raising more than Republicans in some individual races, but those differences could be swamped by the outside money gap.

“What is putting the House majority and the Senate majority, nationally, in danger is the Republicans’ massive stockpile of resources that they’re putting together to push back,” said Morgan Jackson, a longtime North Carolina Democratic strategist and an adviser to former Gov. Roy Cooper, who is running for Senate.

“If you get outspent five to six to eight to one, that can alleviate the environmental advantage that Democrats have this cycle of poor leadership from the White House, a dysfunctional Congress, a bad economy that they own,” he added. “There’s a lot of concern to that.”

It's not just the PACs either. The Democrat party organizations are also far behind in the fundraising race.

Republicans have a massive cash advantage among official party committees: The Republican National Committee has $128 million in the bank compared to just $16 million for the Democratic National Committee, which is actually in the red because it has $18 million in debt. And in the fight for control of Congress, both the National Republican Senatorial Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee have larger war chests than their Democratic counterparts — the NRSC has $55.9 million to the DSCC’s $41 million and the NRCC has $92.7 million to the DCCC’s $79 million. 

If you add all of that up you get this:

Cash on Hand as of June 30 (latest FEC filings):

🔴 MAGA Inc: $400M
🔴 RNC: $128.5M
🔴 NRSC: $55.9M
🔴 NRCC: $92.7M
——
🔵 DNC: $16.3M ($18.5M in debt)
🔵 DSCC: $41M
🔵 DCCC: $79M
——
Total
🟥 Republicans: $677M
🟦 Democrats: $136M https://t.co/bwcR4l8mwT pic.twitter.com/L7eJhuWCuD

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) July 21, 2026

So it's not a 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 advantage it's closer to 5 to 1. 

Could this change? Perhaps but we only have a few months left. If there is another $540 million sitting on the sidelines for Democrats you have to wonder why it hasn't jumped in by now. The House is definitely in play and the Senate was close before Platner dropped out. It's hard to imagine a more encouraging situation for donors.

Of course there is another possibility. Maybe those donors aren't all fans of the hard left turn the party has been making in various places. Maybe the people with money aren't excited about Bernie's billionaires tax or the general anti-capitalist bent of the average DSA member. It's just a theory but it makes sense to me. People with money probably hesitate to fund people who hate them. I'm not sure what Democrats can do about it at this point. They wanted to be the party of Ro Khanna and Zohran Mamdani and now they are.

Editor’s Note: New York City is now facing the consequences of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist takeover.

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