Tipsheet

NRSC Chair Pressed on Why Republicans Are Not Keeping Up With Democrats on Fundraising

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, was pressed Thursday about the GOP's lagging fundraising numbers.

As Axios recently reported, in competitive Senate races in Ohio, Texas, Montana, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nevada, Democrats are ahead of Republicans in fundraising totals in the first quarter.   

In at least six of the most competitive Senate races, Democrats out-raised their GOP opponents.

  • Five Democratic incumbents raised more money than their GOP opponents. Four of those incumbents more than doubled their challenger's fundraising haul.
  • One of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), was out-raised by his Democratic challenger Colin Allred.
  • And in the open-seat race in Arizona, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Az.) nearly doubled the money raised by Republican Kari Lake.

During an interview on Fox Business, host Maria Bartiromo wanted to know why that’s happening.

"If things are going so well, how come you’re not keeping up with [Democrats on] fundraising?" Bartiromo asked, pointing to the Axios report.

"Yeah. Look, we’ve got to compete with the elite billionaires, these tech billionaires that are pouring money in to the cause for the left," he replied. "It’s the same billionaires that are funding some of these pro Hamas encampments across our universities, in our great country, and we need help from the Patriots, the grassroots efforts. We have a website. It’s Senate24.com. Senate24.com. We need help. We need to have the American people showing up with $10, $20, $50 kind of contributions. That’s going to be key to get the grassroots support from the patriots, because we’ve got the right candidates in the right states at this moment. We are being outraised by the liberal elites. We’ve got to fight back."