Why the Republicans are Playing it Safe in the Senate

Advertising is one of the components to a successful campaign.  As is evidenced by the embarrassing defeat suffered by David Trone earlier this week, it isn't the only way to win an election, but it is an important one.  This is why I was struck when the early numbers on Senate advertising for this fall came out, and it was wildly imbalanced between Democrats and Republicans in terms of spending.  The initial numbers (these can and will change) on some of the most competitive races came out for fall (August-November) reservations, and Democrats are well ahead in virtually all of these races.  In Pennsylvania, Democrats have $52 million in ads compared to $8 million for Republicans.  Michigan & Wisconsin, Democrats are outspending 3:1, in Nevada it's 25:1, and in Arizona the Republicans have yet to make ad buys.  The only two races where the Republicans are on-par with Democratic spending are in Ohio (where both sides have spent over $80 million) and Montana (where both sides have spent north of $50 million).

This isn't the end of the advertising for the race, but it does point something out: the Republicans are struggling to keep up with the Democrats, and are running the kind of campaign where you are only focusing on winning enough, not winning the most.  Making ad buys this early is a key strategy for campaigns for a couple of reasons.  First, it's cheaper.  Buying early, especially if you are using candidate cash (as opposed to Super PAC money, which is more expensive) means you get discounted rates on advertising buys.  Second, it signals confidence.  I say this a lot, but no one likes to vote for someone they know is going to lose (it's why "you should run like you're ten points behind" is a stupid person's argument and instead it should be "run like you're one point ahead"), and this goes doubly for donations.  As I said above, advertising dollars are only part of a campaign-these contests need more money for GOTV efforts, campaign stops (which ain't cheap), paid volunteers, & other media (radio, print, door drops).  Showing that your money is well-spent will mean you can usually get more cash.  And third, these races will run out of ad space at some point.  There's only so much television time you can buy in a given year, and in states like Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, & Wisconsin especially, these are races with huge implications for the presidential elections and multiple competitive House races.  It won't just be senators trying to get on the air and get their message out.

Some of this is being driven by lousy fundraising.  With the exception of Wisconsin (where the Republicans are running a self-funder and honestly even there it was close), all of the Democrats in these races won the Q1 fundraising race, and have continued to stockpile cash at greater clips than the Republicans since then.  But I think part of this, especially from the NRSC, is more a sign that the Republicans are betting on the easiest path to 51 seats.

There are three states that Donald Trump won in 2020 that have Democratic incumbents running this cycle: Ohio, Montana, & West Virginia.  With Joe Manchin's retirement in West Virginia, that race is a lost cause for the left, so really it's just down to Ohio & Montana, and to keep the Senate, the Democrats need to keep both of them or pickup a Republican-held seat somewhere else (likely Texas, but I'd argue OH/MT is the easier path).  Winning just one of these two states would ensure that the Republicans have at least 51 seats, and the Democrats wouldn't be able to use Kamala Harris as a path to the majority.

There is a lot of conversation happening right now around polling, and honestly I didn't have time to weigh in on the latest New York Times numbers, though I will say they feel wrong to the point of being nefarious (I think the behavior of analysts like Harry Enten & Nate Cohn this season, having no skepticism about polling that they would deeply question in the opposite direction, shows a lack of impartiality that feels inappropriate for people in their positions).  But what I will say is that if the Republicans actually believed they were up that much in Nevada, Pennsylvania, & Arizona, they'd be spending more to win seats there.  That they continue to just focus on the easy call of MT/OH/WV tells me one of two things.  It either says "Trump will carry those states, and if he doesn't, it wasn't worth the investment to begin with because we can't win there if Biden loses" or "I don't believe those polls, Biden is doing better than we are letting on, and we should focus on saving the easiest path to the Senate just in case."  I think it's a little bit of both, but it's also clear that Mitch McConnell cares most about getting a Senate majority to handoff (way more than he cares about if Donald Trump gets a second term or not).