Republican Party slashes ad buys in crucial battleground states, $13.5 million cut since August 1. Some nominees “have failed to raise enough money to get on the air themselves”-Politico, NY Times…(Never be a GOP candidate)

“Since Aug. 1, the NRSC [National Republican Senatorial Committee] has cut ad buys in the battleground states of Pennsylvania ($7.5 million), Arizona ($3.5 million), Wisconsin ($2.5 million) and Nevada ($1.5 million).”

8/15/22, “GOP slashes ads in key Senate battlegrounds,” Politico, Natalie Allison

“NRSC cancels over $10 million in ad buys as candidates struggle with fundraising.”

“As midterm election campaigns heat up in the Senate’s top battlegrounds, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is canceling millions of dollars of ad spending, sending GOP campaigns and operatives into a panic and upending the committee’s initial spending plan.

The cuts — totaling roughly $13.5 million since Aug. 1 — come as the Republicans’ Senate campaign committee is being forced to “stretch every dollar we can,” said a person familiar with the NRSC’s deliberations.

Republican nominees in critical states like

Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina —

places the GOP must defend this fall —

have failed to raise enough money to get on air themselves,

requiring the NRSC to make cuts elsewhere to accommodate.

Since Aug. 1, the NRSC has cut ad buys in the battleground states of

Pennsylvania ($7.5 million),

Arizona ($3.5 million),

Wisconsin ($2.5 million) and

Nevada ($1.5 million),

according to the ad tracking service AdImpact. Separately, a Democratic source tracking advertising buys estimated roughly $10.5 million in cuts by the NRSC since the first of the month. 

“People are asking, ‘What the hell is going on?’” said one Republican strategist working on Senate races. “Why are we cutting in August? I’ve never seen it like this before.”…

“We’ve been creative in how we’re spending our money and will continue to make sure that every dollar spent by the NRSC is done in the most efficient and effective way possible,” said Chris Hartline, NRSC spokesperson. “Nothing has changed about our commitment to winning in all of our target states.”

The person familiar with the NRSC’s deliberations said the committee is swapping some of its independent expenditure spending for coordinated and hybrid spending with campaigns. The latter category imposes more rules on how much can be spent and what the ads can say, though it allows the committee to purchase ad time at a candidate discount, rather than a much steeper outside group rate.  

But the numbers show that the NRSC has cut significantly more than it has booked back, indicating a potential cash strain at the committee.”…

[NY Times; “After this article was published online, Mr. Hartline called it “false” on Twitter and said that “there is money being moved from the I.E. side” — independent expenditures that cannot be coordinated with campaigns — “back to the N.R.S.C. side of the wall.” He declined to say how much was being rebooked."…8/15/22]

(continuing): “Second-quarter filings showed the DSCC had nearly twice the cash on hand as its Republican counterpart,

$53.5 million to the NRSC’s $28.5 million….

While the GOP committee is making a perplexing number of mid-August cuts, the organization could still book back that time over the next 2½ months. And between what the NRSC has already spent on television this cycle and what it has reserved for the rest of fall,

the Republican committee has still purchased significantly more than the DSCC, though

Democrats will likely reserve more air time in the coming weeks.

“While Rick Scott’s failed leadership of the NRSC continues to be one of Senate Democrats’ greatest assets,” said David Bergstein, spokesperson for the DSCC, “we know McConnell’s super PAC will have significant resources in the weeks ahead and we are continuing to take nothing for granted in each of our battleground races.”

Bergstein was referring to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that has reserved $150 million in ads this fall. Its first spots begin airing Friday in Pennsylvania.”

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