Republicans’ chief Senate super PAC is launching a new $21 million TV and radio ad buy in August across five races as the party continues to fight to protect its majority against massive Democratic spending.
Senate Leadership Fund, the outside group with ties to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, will launch ads starting next week in Montana, Georgia, Iowa and North Carolina, and will also go up in Arizona later this month, according to details shared first with POLITICO. The August wave represents an earlier-than-expected launch for the super PAC, which had previously booked $90 million in ads set to run across the Senate map starting after Labor Day.
The five states are all ones in which Republican incumbents are vulnerable and are considered by both parties to be among the most competitive and expensive races on the map. Senate Leadership Fund had previously booked air time in all five of the states for after Labor Day, along with Colorado, Kentucky and Maine.
Senate Leadership Fund typically does not launch its final ad campaign for the general election until September, unlike its Democratic counterpart Senate Majority PAC, which has already been on air in multiple battlegrounds this summer. The earlier and large investment in August represents both confidence in the GOP group’s fundraising — and the realities of the challenging environment and landscape Republicans are facing this fall.
Steven Law, the president of Senate Leadership Fund, said the effort was intended to put earlier pressure on Democratic challengers. He also alluded to the Kansas Senate race, where a super PAC with links to Democrats meddled to boost conservative Kris Kobach, who ultimately lost the primary Tuesday to Rep. Roger Marshall.
“The decisive defeat of Chuck Schumer’s candidate in the Kansas Republican primary last night was just the start of a relentless battle against the progressive left’s Senate takeover plan,” Law said in a statement on Wednesday. “Now we’re about to make this the hottest August on record for Democrat Senate candidates who have all sworn allegiance to Chuck Schumer’s radical agenda.”
Starting Aug. 12 and running through Sept. 7, the super PAC will spend $6.1 million in Montana, $6.6 million in Georgia, $4.1 million in Iowa and $2.6 million in North Carolina. Starting on Aug. 18 they will go up with $1.9 million in Arizona through Defend Arizona, an affiliated organization.
The ads will further saturate the airwaves in these states during August. One Nation, a nonprofit aligned with Senate Leadership Fund, launched a series of ads this week in all five of these states, alongside Colorado, Kentucky and Maine, and many of those campaigns are also on TV airing ads.
Democratic outside groups have already been spending throughout the summer and have money reserved for August in most of these races and others. Duty and Honor, a nonprofit aligned with Democratic leadership, hit airwaves Wednesday with a wave of TV ads and will spend in more than a half-dozen states this month. Senate Majority PAC, the affiliated Democratic super PAC, is also running ads in a half-dozen battleground races. Democratic campaigns have also been on the air in most states in an earlier and more sustained manner because of the substantial small-dollar fundraising advantage the party has built.