McConnell's Super-Pac Cancels Ad Buys in Arizona and Alaska

Three days after Donald Trump reiterated his call for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s ouster, McConnell’s super PAC canceled about $4 million in ad buys for the Arizona Senate race. The GOP candidate, Trump-backed Blake Masters, is already trailing Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly and is being badly outraised. Kelly has a whopping $40 million on hand to Masters’s $18 million.

The minority leader’s PAC, The Senate Leadership Fund, is one way that McConnell has been able to maintain his position as GOP Senate leader for so long. His PAC has handed out tens of millions of dollars to Republican candidates, which is a lot of incentive to support him.

“We’re leaving the door wide open in Arizona, but we want to move additional resources to other offensive opportunities that have become increasingly competitive, as well as an unexpected expense in Ohio,” Senate Leadership Fund President Steven Law told Politico. “We think the fundamentals of this election strongly favor Republicans, we see multiple paths to winning the majority, and we are going to invest heavily and strategically to achieve that goal,” he added.

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Indeed, this move appears to be a reflection of the reality that Republican fundraising in general has lagged behind the Democrats this whole cycle. It’s not so much that McConnell doesn’t think Masters can’t win, it’s just that there are other targets of opportunity that Republican strategists believe offer a better opportunity to gain a seat.

The McConnell-backed super PAC’s strategic change is in part a reaction to its massive $28 million commitment in Ohio, where GOP nominee J.D. Vance is facing a strong challenge from Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio). The organization said it will reallocate the money elsewhere and is not planning to totally pull of out Arizona at the moment, as Kelly leads Masters in essentially every recent public poll.

The cancellation of a $4 million ad buy in Alaska is a strategic move, given that incumbent GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski is far ahead in her re-election campaign.

While the change in Arizona might raise questions about Republicans’ view of Masters’s chances, Law said the decision to cut two weeks — or about $1.7 million in advertising — to boost Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is a vote of confidence in her. Murkowski advanced to the top-four general election with about 45 percent of the vote compared with 39 percent for Trump-backed Kelly Tshibaka; the general election will be decided by ranked-choice voting.

“We are all-in for Senator Murkowski. Senator Murkowski is in a very strong position and based on that decided to push back our start date,” Law said. Ads supporting Murkowski’s bid will now begin Sept. 20.

It’s tempting to read too much into these technical changes made by super PACs. But there are also other signs that all is not well with Masters’s campaign. Just this past week, Republican senators and megadonors called Masters, begging him to raise more money. One megadonor “read him the riot act” about not relying on his billionaire friend and benefactor Peter Theil too heavily.

Masters still has a lot going for him in what is still a red state with friendly media and a well-spring of GOP support. But if he can’t tap the motherlode of Republican donors who are willing to help, he’s going to lose a race that was tagged as one of the easier GOP pickups at the beginning of the campaign.