I don't know how much money we spend on politics, but here we are, Republicans with this billion-dollar war chest. And let's be clear, it could be bigger and bigger. The wealthiest people supporting Republicans right now have so much money, they basically have an unlimited war chest. How much of a difference is — what is it going to make in these last weeks?
Well, it's a great question, Stephanie. And I think the first most important thing to understand is that in politics money buys you options, not victory. The more of it you have, the more things you can do. But I think here — now look, if you're talking about television or cable or streaming, you're actually running out of places to put commercials, right? Like, you're going to start to see local television stations add like an extra two hours of local news just so they can sell the news adjacency. Literally people are running out of places to put this money.
That's one part of it. The other part of it is, at some point, as we all know, so even if it's just a normal commercial during, let's say, a football game or a sitcom, whatever you might be watching, if you're still watching over-the-air television, you're probably doing something else at the same time. So there's always been, over the last 10 or 15 years, a diminishing return on those particular ads. And then the last piece is, how much more can you change the dynamic? What else are you going to tell a voter they don't already know, especially as we have so many states already with early voting, you know, automatic mail-in voting or whatever the case might be. And so I think that you have this catch-22 when it comes to super PAC spending, Stephanie, which is there's a massive diminishing rate of returns, but nobody wants to be the guy who says, yeah, it's diminishing returns so we didn't do it and oops, we lost.
Okay, but you've run campaigns. At some point, doesn't that barrage of advertisements and flyers — doesn't it just start to annoy people?
It's a great point, which is, as I have been screaming from the mountaintops for many years now, if you started with a solid ground infrastructure in January of the on-year, as opposed to ads in October of the on-year, you would actually already know how many voters you have that are likely to show up for you, regardless of the environment. But infrastructure, especially on the Democratic side, as much as I hate to say this, seems to be almost the afterthought, whereas, as you know, Republicans and conservatives, Stephanie, they never stop organizing. They are 24/7, 365. So they know, even if their people aren't going to show up, they know they've been contacted. They know it's a constant barrage of information. Here's why you have to do this. And let me say this: if you are going to someone's door on October 8th, 2026, and telling them for the first time that this is the most important election of their lifetime, they are likely to slam their door in your face.
Wow. Is there even — can you even look at — I think it's a competitive fundraising game. If you think about wealthy Americans right now, there is clearly a war or an attack on the wealthiest Americans and millions of people that want to bust the status quo. The wealthiest Americans want nothing more than to maintain the status quo because it's working for them. So can you even look at this and say Democrats are raising when Republicans are raising that, when wealthy people have become so rich they can just keep pumping money in to protect themselves?
I mean, I think it's fair to say that the rules of the game are being renegotiated as we speak. And there's no question that within this blue wave that the polls are picking up on, we've seen a lot of candidacies, especially within the Democratic Party, where not having money has been turned into an advantage, where the money disadvantage is a liability for the Republican, usually. Or — I don't think the Democrats are viewed as part of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party who is, you know, bought and paid for, because voters who were increasingly angry not just about inflation, the trade war, the actual war in the Middle East, there's also a sense that the rules of the game have been rigged, that the billionaire class in particular, wealthy corporate interests, have manipulated the rules of democracy, and that's why there is all this anger out there before the tariffs, before the inflation. And that goes to your point. When people realize that the no tax on tips is short-term, it expires, but the tax cuts for corporations are permanent?
Yeah. The gas price is an everyday thing. Is that? Yeah. Okay, but let's talk about Elon Musk because while he has spent big — I think he spent his super PAC $25 million on seven close races — he actually has spotty returns, with the exception of President Trump winning. I'm from Wisconsin. He put all of that money into the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin and got blown out. I think his reputation alone is a hindrance to the Republican Party, just like Donald Trump's reputation is a hindrance.
I would also point out that you can pour money into these races. What are you buying? Maybe you're buying a ground game, that's useful, but you're buying ads on cable and streaming and broadcast. The kids are watching their phones and they're talking to — all I'm saying is, Elon bought X. The Ellisons have TikTok. You can try to meme a reality into existence, and it has not worked.
Okay, returning to the barrio of cable news. Here we are. Here we are.
Yes, there are really good examples really recently of money pouring into elections and it having either the opposite effect or not working at all. And I'm thinking about the Michigan Senate primary where AIPAC just poured money. That was the most expensive primary, like writ large, and it didn't work at all. And in fact, it may have had the opposite effect. And that Wisconsin Senate — the Wisconsin judicial — no, judicial. The Wisconsin judicial, where, I mean, Elon spent more money than he's spent so far in the midterms and it had really the opposite effect. So the good news is that at this moment, it seems as if money is not necessarily buying a win.
