Dems Put Up $25M for Senate Races      09/16 06:26

   

   ATLANTA (AP) -- Trying to defend their narrow Senate majority with a 
challenging slate of contests on Republican-leaning turf, Democrats are pumping 
$25 million into expanded voter outreach across 10 states.

   The new spending from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, first 
shared with The Associated Press, comes less than two months until the Nov. 5 
election and as Democrats are benefiting from a fundraising surge since 
President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid in July and endorsed Vice 
President Kamala Harris as the party standard-bearer.

   "A formidable ground game makes all the difference in close races," DSCC 
Chairman Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan said in a statement. "We are reaching 
every voter we need to win."

   The latest investment will be distributed across Arizona, Florida, Maryland, 
Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. The money 
will go toward efforts to defend five Democratic incumbents and open seats in 
Michigan, Maryland and Arizona that are currently included in Democrats' 
majority, as well as efforts to unseat GOP incumbents in Florida and Texas.

   Plans for the money will vary by state but will include hiring more paid 
field organizers and canvassers; digital organizing programs targeting specific 
groups of voters online; texting programs; and in-person organizing events 
targeting younger generations and nonwhite voters.

   Democrats currently hold a 51-49 Senate advantage, a split that includes 
independent senators who caucus with Democrats. But of the 33 regular Senate 
elections this November, Democrats must defend 23 seats, counting the 
independents who caucus with them to make their majority. They've devoted few 
national resources to West Virginia, a Republican-leaning state where Sen. Joe 
Manchin, a Democrat-turned-independent, is retiring.

   The playing field gives Democrats little margin for error. If they lose West 
Virginia and hold all other seats, they still would have to upset Florida Sen. 
Rick Scott or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to win a majority or hope Harris wins the 
presidential election -- an outcome that would allow her running mate, Tim 
Walz, to cast the tiebreaking vote for Democrats as vice president, as Harris 
did in a 50-50 Senate during the first two years of Biden's administration.

   The DSCC declined to disclose a state-by-state distribution of the $25 
million. But it's no secret that Democrats' defense of the majority starts with 
tough reelection contests for Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of 
Ohio. Both are relatively popular, multiterm incumbents, but they're running in 
states where Donald Trump, the former president and current Republican nominee, 
has twice won by comfortable margins. That means Tester and Brown would need a 
considerable number of voters to split their tickets between Trump and their 
Senate choice.

   Senate Democrats already have financed field offices in Montana and Ohio, 
since those are not presidential battleground states where the Harris campaign 
leads Democrats' coordinated campaign operations. And even with the money 
coming from national coffers, the additional on-the-ground spending will 
reinforce the two Democratic senators' strategies of distancing themselves from 
Harris and the national party.

   Five of the 10 states getting money, meanwhile, overlap with the 
presidential battleground map: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and 
Wisconsin. Biden won all of them four years ago, while Trump won all except 
Nevada in 2016. Both presidential campaigns see the states as tossups this fall.

   The voter outreach spending comes alongside an ongoing $79 million 
advertising effort by Democrats' Senate campaign arm and builds on staffing and 
infrastructure investments that the national party arm already has made.

   The outlay comes after Harris, who has raised more than $500 million since 
taking over the Democratic presidential ticket in July, announced plans to 
distribute $25 million to party committees that focus on down-ballot races. 
Senate and House Democrats' respective campaigns each got $10 million of that 
money, an acknowledgment that Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill would make 
a Harris presidency more successful and that Harris and down-ballot Democrats 
can help each other at the ballot box.

   Democratic aides said the on-the-ground spending was always in the Senate 
committee's plans, but Harris' bounty certainly expands options for all 
party-affiliated campaign groups. Democrats believe they have a superior 
campaign infrastructure to Trump and the rest of the GOP in a campaign year 
where the White House and control of Capitol Hill could be decided by marginal 
turnout changes among the parties' core supporters and a narrow band of 
persuadable voters.

   Still, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has outraised and 
outspent Senate Democrats this cycle, though Democrats had more cash on hand at 
the end of July, the last reporting period disclosed to the Federal Election 
Committee.

   Through July 31, the NRSC had raised $181.3 million and spent $138.5 
million. Republicans reported a balance of $51 million. Democrats had raised 
$154 million and spent $103.3 million. They reported a balance of $59.3 million.