With less than a month to go before the midterms, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is begging donors for money. That's a strange place to be for a party that supposedly has everything going its way. If the polls are right, and Democrats have all the energy and momentum heading into November, the checks should be writing themselves. So why is the party struggling to raise money?
According to a Politico report, DCCC Executive Director Julie Merz sent a memo to donors on Friday, setting a hard deadline for them to cough up $17 million. The committee wants the cash in hand by October 22 so it can compete in a handful of districts that Republicans carried easily in 2024. Merz told donors the money is needed "to take advantage of the opportunities we have" outside of the core battlefield.
And if the donors don't deliver? Merz warned that the party "could be leaving winnable races on the table."
Democrats have admitted all cycle that Republicans are outraising them, but until now they've refused to attach a dollar figure to the hole they're in. That makes Friday's memo a surprising outlier, and a revealing one. Merz assured donors that committee members "remain confident that we will win back the majority in 25 days," and then promptly explained why they should be nervous.
"Here's the tough reality though: the Republican ecosystem has amassed a massive war chest that is significantly greater than ours and is spending it," Merz wrote.
Confident parties don't usually send out memos like that.
Merz spent significant portions of hers on four districts where the committee is desperate for more money, and President Donald Trump won every one of them by double digits in 2024. He carried Florida's 27th District by 14.6 points, Nevada's 2nd District by 13.9, and South Carolina's 1st District by 13. In New York's 21st District, he won by 20.7.
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The DCCC insists its internal polling shows all four races within reach. It also concedes that the GOP's cash advantage, especially the money sitting in the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc., will make it harder to win those seats and other long shots. Merz even name-dropped a few more deep-red districts she called "worthy of additional investment in this environment," including the seats held by Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), who happens to chair the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Meanwhile, the money gap has created headaches for both House and Senate Democrats, who can't agree on where to spend the limited resources they do have. A party riding a wave doesn't have that problem.
The NRCC wasted no time mocking the memo.
"No amount of money fixes candidates voters don't want," NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said in a statement. "These seats are staying red, and Republicans are on offense across the map."
Still, something doesn’t make sense to me.
If Democrats have everything going for them this cycle, they should be rolling in cash, not begging for it. This doesn't jibe with the polling that shows them ahead. On top of that, the GOP is registering more new voters in swing states. Something isn't adding up.