I’ve long been skeptical of the power of money in elections. Yes, it matters, and a certain baseline is necessary to compete, but money simply isn’t determinative. If it was, we’d be talking about Presidents Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton outraised Donald Trump $564 million to $333 million.
In 2024, Kamala Harris outraised Trump $1.1 billion to $464 million. Even accounting for outside spending, Democrats had roughly $500 million more to spend, for all the good it did.
And just this past weekend, Democrats pulled off a stunning Texas state Senate special election victory in a Trump +17 district, winning by 14 points despite being outspent nearly 10-to-1—$2.4 million to the GOP’s $250,000.
So it’s not particularly daunting to read that Trump, master of the political grift, has already amassed a $483 million war chest to help his party in November’s midterm elections. Republican House and Senate campaign committees have another $125 million, not including billionaire sugar daddies like Elon Musk, who will likely contribute tens of millions more.
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By comparison, Democratic campaign committees have raised $167 million. On paper, that looks ominous.
Trump clearly sees this money as a hedge against a Democratic-controlled Congress and the investigations—and possible impeachment—that would certainly follow.
“Even presidents, whether it’s Republican or Democrat, when they win, it doesn’t make any difference, they seem to lose the midterm,” Trump said recently on Fox News. “That’s the only thing I worry about.”
And why is he worried? Because Democrats would “find something” to impeach him over.
So while Trump has never shown much interest in building a durable Republican majority or protecting vulnerable incumbents, he cares deeply about shielding himself from accountability. His political spending has always reflected that priority: punishing enemies, rewarding loyalty, and settling personal scores, even when it damages his own party.
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And that’s not speculation. That ’s exactly how Trump is already signaling he intends to use his massive midterm war chest.
“As the GOP’s fundraiser-in-chief, Trump isn’t waiting until November to put his cash to work. The president intends to use the money he’s amassed to play the role of kingmaker in the midterms, according to people familiar with the strategy,” Bloomberg reported. “That involves doling out money to loyalists, or chosen candidates in competitive primaries or congressional races and punishing lawmakers who’ve crossed him over the past year on everything from the passage of his signature tax bill to the release of the Epstein files.”
Rather than focusing on issues voters actually care about—like the cost of living or the nation’s accelerating slide toward authoritarianism—Trump is eager to burn through his war chest by attacking fellow Republicans.
We’ve seen this movie before. Trump has an abysmal record of picking candidates in competitive races, consistently choosing personal loyalty over electability. His meddling saddled Republicans with Herschel Walker in Georgia, Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Blake Masters in Arizona, and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire—four 2022 Senate races the GOP could have won with credible nominees.
Trump’s allies aren’t even pretending otherwise.
“MAGA Inc. will have the resources to help candidates who support President Trump’s America First agenda,” super PAC spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer told Bloomberg.
Translation: Trump will undermine electable moderates in swing districts in favor of the most extreme MAGA loyalists he can find, then try to buy his way out of the damage with cash.
In fact, much of this money is already being wasted in deep-red districts Democrats shouldn’t even be contesting, like Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District special election in early December. Republicans blew over $3.3 million holding what should’ve been an easy seat in a Trump +21 district, and still managed only a single-digit victory.
If Trump wants to blow his massive war chest by padding margins in deep-red districts and sabotaging winnable races with terrible candidates, Democrats should welcome it. That strategy didn’t work in a Trump +17 district in Texas, and there’s no reason to think it will suddenly work on a national scale.
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