Republicans hold $1 billion to Democrats' $579 million, but Trump-aligned groups booking in September sometimes pay over five times earlier rates. At those prices the cash lead buys less airtime than its size suggests, though the record cannot say how much less nationally.
Perspective Coverage
4 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 6%
- Operator
- Operator 59%
- Investor
- Investor 35%
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives45
- Confidence60
Sergey Brin has given $102 million to defeat California's Prop 40, a one-time 5% billionaire tax that could cost him about $13 billion. The state's $100 billion estimate depends as much on how many of its 200 billionaires stay resident as on the November vote.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+8
- Incentives78
- Confidence60
Public companies and their trade groups supplied over 40% of the $2.5 billion raised by party 527 committees in 25 years, a Wharton-CPA primer finds. Its authors want boards to govern that giving on purpose before possible post-midterm investigations.
Reality
- Evidence35
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives70
- Confidence40
Abortion runs in fewer than 5 percent of Democratic Senate ads nationally and about 15 percent of the $40.8 million spent in Maine, where Planned Parenthood Votes has placed its largest buy of 2026 against Susan Collins.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives58
- Confidence55
Three unions supplied about $6 million of the $7.8 million raised to defend Washington's 9.9% levy on household income above $1 million, six times what the repeal campaign has, for revenue the state starts billing in 2029.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption40
- Hype gap+14
- Incentives86
- Confidence55
Most of the money reached the South Dakota senator as outside spending from Defend American Jobs, a group funded by a super PAC financed by Andreessen Horowitz, in a state whose legislature has already made hyperscalers pay more for water and power.
Reality
- Evidence64
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+16
- Incentives80
- Confidence55
The Department of Revenue scores Washington's new 9.9% tax on annual income above $1 million at $3.1 billion in its first fiscal year. A ballot measure this fall will decide whether it stands.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+18
- Incentives72
- Confidence60
Ahead of Tuesday's cloture vote the White House is answering bank lobbyists with a scenario tool, while Fairshake's $30 million to Democrats is already spent and Republicans including John Cornyn weigh a no.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+18
- Incentives82
- Confidence55
More than $3.4 billion is chasing a chamber that decides who staffs the administration and who fills open court seats for the rest of the term, and the spending so far shows the two sides pricing the same seats very differently.
Reality
- Evidence57
- Adoption68
- Hype gap+18
- Incentives68
- Confidence55
A 5% levy on about 200 people was costed against wealth that has already moved. Fortune counts roughly $29 billion gone, and the two men at the top were 28.5% of the base.
Reality
- Evidence38
- Adoption40
- Hype gap+32
- Incentives78
- Confidence42