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Senate Leadership Fund moves ad money to Kansas after spending over $30 million in North Carolina
Senate Leadership Fund paused its North Carolina ads after spending over $30 million there and put seven figures into Kansas. With 53 seats and room to lose three, Republicans are now paying to protect Roger Marshall and no longer Michael Whatley.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Democrat Roy Cooper leads Republican Michael Whatley in recent North Carolina polling, according to Crypto Briefing.
- Another Republican group cut millions of dollars of North Carolina ad reservations last week, Semafor reported.
- In Kansas, Democrat Adam Hamilton is running close to Marshall, who seeks a second term in a state where no Democrat has won a Senate race in nearly a century.
- SLF has also recently raised its spending in the Senate races in Ohio and Iowa.
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Why it matters
- constraint A Cooper win would cut the seats Republicans can lose from three to two, and a Hamilton win as well would leave the party one to spare.
- exposure Whatley now has to finish the race against Cooper without new ads from Senate Republicans' top super PAC, whose money has gone to Marshall instead.
- contradiction Crypto Briefing says SLF has 'ceased' North Carolina ads while Semafor calls the spending 'on hold'; only a hold leaves room for the money to return before the vote.
Seven figures means somewhere between $1 million and just under $10 million [2]. Even at the top of that range, the Kansas campaign costs the Senate Leadership Fund less than a third of the more than $30 million it spent in North Carolina [2]. The first ad calls Adam Hamilton a "two-face extremist" who is "too-extreme for Kansas," goes after his immigration record and ties him to Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton, according to Semafor [9]. Its target is his credibility as a centrist [9].
The group's stated reason is allocation. "SLF's job is to maintain the majority and this move reflects the most effective and efficient use of resources to do exactly that," a person familiar with the plans told Semafor [4].
The money fits three readings. First, North Carolina is being conceded at the margin. SLF is not the only Republican money leaving: a Trump-aligned group has no spending on the books past this week, according to Ad Impact [3], and some Republicans have been urging allies to concentrate on other Senate races [13].
The second reading is timing. If SLF returns to North Carolina later in the race, the $30 million becomes early money in a contest the group still means to win [1].
Or SLF is simply spreading money across more races, with Kansas joining recent increases in Ohio and Iowa [5]. On that reading the Kansas buy is a hedge sized to a race Crypto Briefing describes as narrowing [12].
Republicans hold 53 seats, North Carolina and Kansas among them, and can lose three and keep the majority [10]. The floor is 50 [3]. Neither report addresses the House, so this spending cannot by itself justify pricing in a split Congress. It is evidence about the Senate margin only.
I think the money says North Carolina is the seat the party is prepared to lose and Kansas is one it will not leave undefended, or rather, one it will defend at a price well below what it spent on Whatley [2]. The counter-thesis is the timing reading. SLF back on the air in North Carolina before the election would prove it right and this view wrong [1].
What to watch
- Whether SLF's Kansas buys grow from seven figures into eight; a larger outlay would mean the group treats Marshall's seat as at real risk.
- New Kansas polling on the Hamilton-Marshall gap, and whether Democratic groups start spending behind Hamilton.
- Further SLF increases in Ohio and Iowa, a sign of how many races are now drawing on the same super PAC.