The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s spending sharply escalated in August following the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down federal limits capping how much parties could coordinate to spend on their candidates.
The NRSC logged less than $3 million in coordinated expenditures prior to the Supreme Court’s decision on July 30. In its most recent Federal Election Commission filing, the NRSC reported spending almost $46 million for candidates across the county.
The three largest coordinated spending allocations were more than $10 million for Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio, more than $8 million for Rep. Ashley Hinson in Iowa and nearly $8 million into Michael Whatley’s Senate race in North Carolina.
The committee also spent millions on Senate races for John Sununu in New Hampshire, Mike Rogers in Michigan, Rep. Mike Collins in Georgia and Sens. Susan Collins in Maine, Dan Sullivan in Alaska and Darline Graham in South Carolina.
Trending
The NRSC listed the purpose of the expenditures as media or direct mail production.
“The NRSC entered August with a record high cash on hand and invested it in coordinated communications,” spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez told The Washington Sun. “Republicans have already booked more in coordinated media and voter contact than our counterpart even has available in cash on hand.”
The NRSC had a more than $16 million cash-on-hand advantage over the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to FEC filings from July.
The DSCC did not increase its spending nearly as much. It spent less than $200,000 before the Supreme Court struck down the limits, and spent just over $1 million after the ruling, according to its most recent filing.
The coordinated spending totals reported to the FEC can represent future ad reservations, vendor contracts, polling, message testing and media training, as well as anything else the committees plan with candidates ahead of Election Day.
Before the Supreme Court ruling, campaign arms like the NRSC could only make coordinated spends of up to $61,800 per House candidate (or $123,600 if the state had only one seat). On the Senate side, the limits in 2024 ranged from $123,600 to almost $3.8 million depending on each state’s voting-age population.
The NRSC teamed up with Vice President JD Vance when he was a senator from Ohio to file the lawsuit against the spending limits in 2022.
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the 6-3 majority opinion that spending of campaign organizations like the NRSC should be interpreted as an expression of free speech and the limits constituted a “severe infringement” on those rights.
“In light of the other meaningful prophylactic measures available to the Government, and given the severe infringement on First Amendment-protected political speech that ensues from limiting a political party’s spending in support of its candidates, we conclude that the political-party coordinated-expenditure limits are ‘disproportionate’ and are not ‘necessary’ and ‘narrowly tailored’ for the circumvention interest it seeks to protect,” Kavanaugh wrote.
He also wrote that eliminating the spending caps would allow party committees such as the NRSC to “participate more freely and compete more fully in the political process.”
Author
