U.S. President Donald Trump has fulfilled his promise to invest over $300 million in political funds for the midterms of 2026.
The latest campaign finance reports released on Tuesday evening show that millions of dollars are flowing into House districts that had almost no competition two years ago, highlighting that the problems faced by the Republican Party in the last few weeks of the campaign have spread to a wider range.
According to the latest documents from the United States Federal Election Commission ( FEC ), Trump's main super political action committee, MAGA Inc, has spent $300.5 million as of October 14th, of which a quarter, or $75.5 million, was spent in the first two weeks of October. The committee still has $164.3 million in cash on hand. Trump stated on Tuesday that his political campaign will cost over $400 million by election day.
A large amount of funds is flowing through two new Trump-related organizations. According to the FEC document, MAGA Inc has transferred $200 million to No Going Back PAC, and $25 million to Safety & Affordability PAC; these two organizations have reported a total of over $209 million in independent expenditures.
This expenditure could also alleviate the concerns of Republicans over the past few months that Trump would keep a large amount of funds on his account instead of using them in the midterms. Republican operatives were still worried until September that most of the funds for MAGA Inc would remain untouched.
According to the analysis of the PAC file by CNBC, Safety and Affordability have spent $3.76 million in Arizona's 1st Congressional District, $1.84 million in Maine's 2nd Congressional District, $1.6 million in Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District, $1.48 million in North Carolina's 1st Congressional District, and $1.4 million in Ohio's 10th Congressional District. The organization has also invested over $1 million each in Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional District, Ohio's 9th Congressional District, and Michigan's 7th Congressional District.
Some of these are mature swing districts. The program hosted by Amy Walter ( Amy Walter ), Cook Political Report, lists Wisconsin’s 3rd District, North Carolina’s 1st District, Pennsylvania’s 8th District, Ohio’s 9th District, and Michigan’s 7th District as one of its 21 “tied” districts.
In other regions where Trump made donations, it is evident that the Republican Party was forced to enter unfamiliar territories of campaigning.
In Ohio's 10th Congressional District, Safety and Affordability PAC have spent approximately $1.4 million to support Republican Representative Mike Turner (Mike Turner) in defending this seat. Turner won by a margin of 18 percentage points in 2024. The Democratic National Committee for Congressional Elections now lists this seat as one of the potential targets for a comeback in 2026, while according to AdImpact, the National Republican Congressional Committee only began to invest funds here this month.
According to the analysis of the FEC file of PAC using CNBC, No Going Back spent approximately 5 million dollars each in Michigan's 4th Congressional District, which is controlled by the Republican Party, and North Carolina's 11th Congressional District. At the same time, it invested a total of 14.4 million dollars in Florida's 14th and 25th Congressional Districts, which are controlled by the Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, other Republican organizations have also begun to scale back their efforts. Last week, The Associated Press reported that the super PAC of House Speaker Mike Johnson (Mike Johnson) – Congressional Leadership Fund – has stopped running advertisements in Iowa's 1st Congressional District, New Jersey's 7th Congressional District, Michigan's 8th Congressional District, and Ohio's 1st Congressional District. At the same time, according to an analysis of CNBC of FEC documents, Trump-related organizations have spent a total of approximately $1.4 million in these four campaigns.
According to the data from AdImpact, in 42 House of Representatives campaigns rated as "neck and neck" or "slightly favoring one side" by Cook Report, the Republican Party still maintained an advantage in advertising spending in 25 of those campaigns. However, the political landscape is still tilting in favor of the Democratic Party. In 21 House of Representatives campaigns rated as "neck and neck" by Cook, the Republicans controlled 16 of them, while the Democrats controlled 5.
According to the latest documents, Trump has also invested a large amount of money in the Senate through his PAC. Analysis of the new FEC documents shows that Trump spent nearly 30 million dollars in Michigan, 27.8 million dollars in Ohio, 11.8 million dollars in New Hampshire, and 9.9 million dollars in North Carolina. These four campaigns alone totaled approximately 79 million dollars.
Trump's own support rate may explain this pressure. A poll conducted by The New York Times and the Syrena College, released on Wednesday, showed that his support rate was 36% and his opposition rate was 59%.
In this poll, 69% of respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the way he handled living costs, compared to 29%; 73% were dissatisfied with the handling of gasoline prices, versus 24%. When respondents saw the actual candidates running for the House of Representatives in their districts, the Democratic Party led by 10 percentage points.
Trump's allies are also trying to solve a problem related to voter turnout: how to get voters who supported Trump in the presidential election to go out and vote even when his name is not on the ballot.
In the latest report, MAGA Inc reported an expenditure of $16.2 million on October 8th, labeled as “voting education.” The New York Times reported on Tuesday that the organization has placed over 2,200 separate Facebook and Instagram advertisements in more than 20 states, urging Republicans to vote early or to go out and vote.
