The U.S. Supreme Court’s Tuesday decision to strike down caps on coordinated spending by political parties and candidates could boost GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton, giving national Republicans a new tool to eat into James Talarico’s fundraising edge.
The 6-to-3 decision eliminated federal limits on how much political parties could spend on expenses like advertising in coordination with their candidates, with the high court finding that such caps violated the First Amendment.
As a result, political parties can spend without limit, in direct coordination with candidates, likely opening the floodgates to even more political advertising and spending.
“This is a massive victory for the First Amendment,” Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters said in a statement. “The RNC has been preparing for this ruling, and we are ready to expand the ways we directly help and provide resources to Republican candidates across the country.”
The ruling could be especially meaningful in Texas’ U.S. Senate race, where Talarico has posted astronomical fundraising totals while Paxton has lagged not just his opponent, but other Republicans in key states. Talarico had $9.9 million in the bank at last count compared to Paxton’s $2.3 million, a disparity that appeared to be one of the Austin Democrat’s biggest advantages in the race.
Trey Trainor, a longtime GOP operative in Texas who previously chaired the Federal Election Commission, said the decision “would definitely make up for any of the fundraising woes that [Paxton’s] had here in Texas.”
“In other states where the Republicans are doing really well and the Democrats aren’t, the DNC will be able to come in and bridge that gap there as well,” Trainor said, noting the advantages run both ways.
While the decision does grantboth parties the same coordination powers, Republicans are expected to reap more immediate benefits.
Democratic fundraising, including the party’s robust small-dollar donation machine, has generally flowed to candidates — whose campaigns are subject to individual contribution limits. Republicans, on the other hand, typically rely more on larger donors who funnel their money to the party, meaning their party apparatus is far better-funded — and, with Tuesday’s ruling, can now freely use that cash to close their candidates’ funding gaps.
The Republican National Committee, for example, had $125.5 million in cash on hand at the beginning of June, while the Democratic National Committee was in debt. The RNC is now free to spend that money in coordination with Texas Republicans, if it chooses.
In an interview Wednesday, RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said he wasn’t sure yet whether his organization would help close Paxton’s financial gap, but added that he’s not concerned about Paxton’s campaign and expects him to win easily.
“We’ll be able to fully watch everything that [campaigns] do in coordination with them, nudge them where we need to, support them where they need and make sure that us or the collective doesn’t waste any resources,” Gruters said in an interview. “It’s hard to say exactly where we’re going to end up being on every race, but we have the resources we need to play in every race that we’re going to win.”
Prior to the ruling, the RNC, along with other party committees like the National Republican Senatorial Committee, was free to support candidates through independent expenditures. The RNC had already indicated it planned to do so for Paxton.
But the newfound ability to coordinate spending with candidates appears to givethe better-funded parties access to the lower ad rates traditionally reserved for candidates alone, meaning party committees’ dollars would go further this cycle than they have before.
“Let’s say the [RNC] wanted to do a half-million-dollar ad buy in the Dallas-Fort Worth area,” Trainor said. “The RNC could do that half-million-dollar ad buy, and the disclaimer on it would be that it was, in fact, paid for by the RNC. But they can do it all as promotional with the Paxton campaign, and they could coordinate with them on what the message needed to be, and what stations they want it to be on, or time slots, or all of those things that they haven’t been able to do in the past with the candidate.”
In a memo, the NRSC announced it was shuttering its “independent expenditure unit” in light of the ruling.
“In its place, all NRSC-funded voter contact will largely be executed as coordinated spending, developed directly with campaigns,” the memo reads, adding that such coordinated buys would be eligible for TV ad rates that are three to 13 times lower than what outside groups pay.
How much money national Republicans will direct to Texas remains an open question. Groups like the RNC and NRSC have a lengthy map of Senate seats to defend, including in battleground states like Maine and North Carolina, and they are also going on offense in states such as Georgia and Michigan.
But the decision positions Republicans to offset Talarico’s fundraising edge if they choose.
In the first quarter of the year, Talarico, a fundraising powerhouse, raised a record $27 million — twelve times more than Paxton’s sum during the same period. Paxton has historically posted relatively weak fundraising totals, and his nomination sparked fears among Washington Republicans that Texas would require far more investment to stay red than if U.S. Sen. John Cornyn had led the ticket.
Democrats could similarly coordinate spending with Talarico and others; groups like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, though outpaced by Republicans, have tens of millions of dollars in their war chests.
The first federal fundraising reporting deadline since Texas’ May 26 primary runoff, when Paxton won the nomination, is July 15.
The decision also affects congressional races, including three South Texas seats that Republicans are defending or looking to flip: GOP U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz’s 15th Congressional District, and the 28th and 34th Congressional Districts, now held by Democratic U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez.
Democrats condemned Tuesday’s decision as further expanding the influence of big money in politics.
“Today’s ruling is a win for billionaire donors and special interests who want more influence over the GOP agenda and an invitation for corruption,” Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene and Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said in a joint statement. They accused Republicans of “rewriting the rules in an effort to drown out the will of the voters by flooding elections with more money from their billionaire backers.”
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
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