GOP Senate Candidates Are Getting Crushed Online

With Roger Sollenberger, Political Reporter

Pay Dirt is a weekly foray into the pigpen of political funding. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Thursday.

The Big Dig this week… The massive online spending gap in key Senate races

As the old saw goes, it takes money to make money. And there’s an obvious corollary: It also takes money to spend money.

Those truths have recently hit home for Republican candidates in vital Senate races this year, some of whom have struggled to amass the kind of scratch needed to carry a self-sustaining modern campaign through the finish line.

The fundraising woes have yielded spending woes. And that’s created headaches for the GOP, as national groups have had to adapt their previous strategies on the fly to cover unexpected gaps between underperforming conservatives and their Democratic rivals.

Nowhere is that spending gap more clear than in the digital arena.

Big Tech

A review of Facebook and Google ad data over the last three months show that Republicans have been getting shellacked in races the party can’t afford to lose.

Last week, Kyle Tharp and Nick Seymour at the FWIW newsletter reported that Democratic Senate candidates across the board have spent five times as much money on Facebook and Google as their GOP opponents this year.

Here’s a closer cut of the five most contested races—Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

Facebook ad data for the top Senate races shows Democrats comprising the top five spenders over the last 90 days. The candidate in sixth, Georgia’s Herschel Walker, trails rival Sen. Raphael Warnock $288,000 to $1.53 million over that period, according to the data. (The former football star lags even further behind in Google buys, $95,000 to $790,000.)

In Arizona—where the GOP seeks to flip a seat—right-wing tech investor Blake Masters has dropped just $12,000 on Google ads in the last month, while spending no money on Facebook. Meanwhile, his rival, Sen. Mark Kelly, has unloaded $491,000 and $361,000 on those platforms, respectively. And in Nevada, another Republican target for a flip, GOP candidate Adam Laxalt is about ten to one behind incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in Facebook spending in the last month—$27,600 to $284,000.

The landscape isn’t different in states where Republicans are trying to hold GOP seats.

Republican hopeful Dr. Mehmet Oz has been outspent four to one on Facebook in the last month by his meme-lord opponent Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman in Pennsylvania. That ratio increases to more than seven to one on Google, where the Fetterman campaign has invested $322,000 over the last 30 days.

The unexpectedly tight race in Ohio has Republican J.D. Vance—who went through a particularly rough fundraising patch through June—spending far less on digital outreach than Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan. Since May, the month Vance locked up the primary, he’s spent $17,300 to Ryan’s $876,000 in combined Facebook platform ad buys. And over the last month alone, he’s behind Ryan $1,600 to $366,000. But Vance has recently kicked up his Google spending, $104,000 to Ryan’s $192,000 over the last 30 days.

From Roger’s Notebook

Is America saved yet? Former President Trump’s Save America leadership PAC filed its most recent monthly report last week, showing $5,900 coming in, and $4 million going out. Attorneys fees alone ate up $1 million in the month of July, as Trump fends off legal threats on a number of fronts.

Still, the filing doesn’t account for whatever costs he’s incurred this month after the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home in connection with possible espionage and obstruction crimes—though one of the firms involved in that matter, Silverman Thompson, appears on the spending report, with a $36,000 take on July 22.

About half the total amount of Trump’s July legal fees—$486,000—went to one firm, led by Trump’s current go-to attorney Alina Habba, who represents him in an array of matters, including the New York Attorney General investigation into his business practices.

Wanna get away. At the same time, the Republican National Committee didn’t report any payments to the Trump attorneys they’ve been paying for the last year. This could signal that their offer to help cover Trump’s costs has run its course.

The RNC did, however, pay $10,000 to an attorney in the Virgin Islands last month. While it’s unclear what the services were for, the RNC reported several thousands of dollars in travel and dining expenses for a fundraiser in the territory this spring. (An RNC spokesperson didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.)

Late to the Party. The Federal Election Commission has a few questions for a Puerto Rican super PAC whose treasurer pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations three months ago, as Pay Dirt reported last week. The treasurer won’t be sentenced until the end of the month, though, so he’s got some time to reply.

Ted’s Crew. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) launched a new “25 for 22 Victory Fund” this week, which bundles Cruz’s campaign and leadership PAC with a raft of 25 conservative candidates. Notably, only one of those allies—Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)—is a member of the Senate; the rest are running for the House, which appears like an easier lift for Republicans this year.

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More from the Beast’s Politics desk

Tucker Carlson and a number of other right-wing personalities have embraced a surprising new cause—defending the rights of an Amish farm suspected of a fatal listeria outbreak to ignore federal food regulations. The intrepid Will Sommer takes you once more into the weird end of the pool this week—read it here.

The long-running soap opera between House GOP conference chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and her top nemesis is about to travel inside the Beltway. Campaign reporter Jake LaHut’s first outing as a Beast is a doozy—check it out here.

Trump donors unwittingly just paid $650,000 last month to commission his official presidential portrait. Zach Petrizzo and I sketch that all out for you here.

You asked, so we asked—and we learned from eight sources that the feds aren’t done with Matt Gaetz.

We'll be back next week with more Pay Dirt. Have a tip? Send us a note and subscribe here.

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