No, the Democrats’ Cash Deficit Won’t “Swamp” Them in the Midterms

If money talks, national Democrats are getting a harsh tongue-lashing from donors. “For the first time in years,” The New York Times reported last week, “Democrats are sounding the alarm about money problems.” The Democratic National Committee started the year in the red, owing $3.5 million, while its Republican counterpart was sitting on $95 million in cash. And on top of that, the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA, Inc. is sitting on $300 million, a sum no Democratic super PAC can even begin to challenge. This gargantuan cash gap, as the Times warned in its headline, “threatens to swamp Democrats in the midterms.”

These figures are more than enough to shake the perpetually nervy Democratic Party base, who have buoyed lately by polling that shows a potential blue wave in the November elections. “This is a huge deal,” Jake Grumbach, an associate professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, wrote on Bluesky. “After years of leading in fundraising, Dem small donors are (rightly) pissed off at the spam texts and emails, as well as at congressional leadership. Meanwhile, GOP billionaire money is hitting record levels. Perfect storm.”

But some party strategists have a message for the rattled faithful: Take a deep breath. The situation is not nearly as dire as it may seem. The Democrats are still in a strong position to win back the House and perhaps even the Senate.

Yes, donors are cranky, even angry, over having dumped massive amounts of money into Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign only to see her lose to a convicted felon, these strategists say. But the animus does not extend to the individual Democratic candidates who are seeking to flip both chambers of Congress this fall.

“They’re tired. they’re still frustrated over 2024, and they don’t feel like they’ve gotten good answers about why money got spent the way it was,” veteran Democratic strategist Steven Schale said of major donors. But “when push comes to shove, and there are 20 races to decide who wins the majority in the House, not only will the grassroots money be there,” but bigger donors will step up as well, he said. “I am not concerned about candidates who are in a race they can win in 2026 being short of money.”

In fact, the money is already flowing. The candidate deemed by the Cook Political Report as the most endangered Democrat this fall is also by far the biggest fundraiser: Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia raised $43 million in 2025 and started the year with a major financial advantage over his three potential Republican challengers, who have a combined war chest of only $12 million. Democratic Senate candidates in Ohio, North Carolina and Maine are outraising their GOP opponents in those flippable states.

That apparent enthusiasm extends to Senate races in some red states, too. In Alaska, Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, who announced her campaign after the fourth-quarter fundraising reporting deadline passed, reported raising $1.5 million in the first 24 hours after her announcement last month (versus the $2.8 million that GOP Senator Dan Sullivan raised all of last year). In Florida, Alex Vindman, the whistleblower in President Trump’s first impeachment, raised $1.7 million in the first 24 hours of his campaign last month (versus Republican Senator Ashley Moody’s $2.6 million in direct contributions in 2025). In Texas, both Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico have raised sums that are competitive with GOP Senator John Cornyn’s haul (and far exceed that of Attorney General Ken Paxton); this week alone, Talarico raised $2.5 million over 24 hours thanks to his cancelled appearance on Stephen Colbert’s show.

“Senate Democrats have expanded the map by recruiting top-tier candidates in key battleground races, and we’re seeing a groundswell of excitement as our candidates decisively outraise their Republican opponents,” Joe Bush, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in an emailed statement.

In the House, “frontline” Democratic incumbents in battleground districts outraised their GOP opponents by three-to-one on average in the last three months of 2025, while multiple Democratic challengers in key races outraised the GOP incumbents there, according to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The biggest fundraiser among House candidates is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who drew a stunning $23 million last year—not necessary for the lawmaker to retain her safe seat, but a sign of how willing donors are to support specific Democrats in a year when the party needs to flip just three seats to take the House majority.

In one race, for Pennsylvania’s 10th congressional seat, Democratic challenger Janelle Stelson has outraised the GOP incumbent, Rep. Scott Perry, even though Stelson only announced her campaign last summer. In Tennessee, Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder has raised nearly four times that of Rep. Andy Ogles, the Republican incumbent whose campaign now owes more than it has on hand. And in a North Carolina congressional race that the Cook Political Report ranks as “likely Republican,” Democratic challenger Jamie Ager—who also got into the race last summer—outraised GOP incumbent Rep. Chuck Edwards in all of 2025, and collected more than twice as much in individual contributions.

Joel Payne, a longtime Democratic operative who is now chief communications officer for the group MoveOn, said these numbers show that while donors may have soured on the Democratic Party as a whole, they’re enthusiastic about specific candidates. “Democrats are not lacking in candidate quality, even if the brand of the party is lacking right now,” he said.

That is not to say Democrats aren’t worried about the broader money gap. They are. And their concerns are exacerbated by a looming Supreme Court decision on campaign spending, which may mean the national parties will be able to coordinate more with individual campaigns. That would favor Republicans, who would be able to use more of their national party cash to help individual candidates and at the lower broadcast advertising rates candidate committees get.

Democrats also rely more on small donors. If the coordination rules are lifted, big-money donors (who can contribute up to $44.300 per calendar year to a national party) can have more direct impact on an individual campaign.

It may take awhile to heal the rift with donors. Schale does not blame DNC chair Ken Martin, though he says Martin deprived donors of the “catharsis” when he refused to release an autopsy of the 2024 race. Many donors are unhappy with how their money was spent, especially since Harris outspent Trump and lost not only the Electoral College vote but the popular vote too, he says.

But if history is any guide, the DNC’s cash deficit is by no means a death knell for Democratic candidates this fall. In 2018, the last time Trump was president and the Democrats were in the minority in Congress, the DNC was also at a significant cash disadvantage at the beginning of the year—but the party went on to flip the House.

So money isn’t everything, a truism that extends to individual candidates. Look no further than Taylor Rehmet, a Democrat in a deep-red county in Texas who, despite having been outspent nearly ten-to-one, won a landslide victory for a state legislative seat last month.

Why, though, does Trump still rake in the cash despite his abysmal approval ratings? Experts attribute it to the sheer fact that Trump is president, and his pay-to-play nature.

“Democratic donors give because they believe in something. Republican donors give because they think they’re going to get something,” said Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson, who was deputy press secretary for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and a senior staffer for the DCCC. “For the next three years, his donors know he’s going to be there. He’s made clear he’s the most transactional president in American history. If you want a pardon, or for [the Department of Justice] to look the other way, or a regulatory change or a tax rate cut, you know exactly where to wire the money.”

While those big donors to MAGA, Inc. are sure to get Trump’s favorable attention, their ability to swing the result of the upcoming elections is far less certain. “Trump’s money advantage is like putting gasoline into a car with a broken engine,” Ferguson said. “The problem isn’t the fuel. It’s the performance.”