Photo: AURORA, ILLINOIS - AUGUST 05: Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaks during a press conference with Texas Democrats at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades union hall on August 05, 2025 in Aurora, Illinois. Democratic Texas lawmakers left the state on Sunday to prevent a quorum from being reached during a special session called to redistrict the state in favor of Republican candidates. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
As the 2026 midterms approach, the consensus among the pundit class is that the Democrats will retake control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate. But an all-out revolt from the Democrat donor class may complicate that picture.
Democrats are indeed leading in the polls and running with a strong historical precedent that says the president’s party almost always loses seats in the midterms. According to recent FEC filings, however, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is quite literally broke – and there is no precedent for winning a major national election without at least remaining competitive in the money game.
As Politico reports, “The DNC is more than $2 million in debt, while the Republican National Committee (RNC) has stockpiled over $128 million.”
This Republican cash advantage was supercharged by the recent Supreme Court ruling in NRSC v. FEC which altered campaign finance law such that the party committees (e.g., the NRCC) can coordinate their spending with candidates. Consequently, the GOP can further leverage its cash advantage over the Democrats. This has increased donor discontent:
“Chair Ken Martin is facing a growing onslaught of criticism for failing to build up reserves … More than half a dozen donors, bundlers and donor advisers, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said they’ve lost trust in the party’s top organization. Several have redirected their cash to the House and Senate Democratic campaign committees, the party’s main fundraising and spending vehicles for the midterms. Some said they’ve shut out working with Martin.”
It isn’t difficult to see why. Fox News reports, “As the Democratic National Committee (DNC) shouldered significant debt and fell behind its GOP equivalent, Democratic leadership decided to use its headquarters as collateral for a $15 million loan, according to public records.” Incredibly, it gets even worse. According to a story in the New York Times, “The Democratic Party is so short on cash that leaders at its headquarters have undertaken a new gambit to mask the severity of the problems: asking vendors not to send bills until after the midterm elections.”
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is so broke they had to mortgage the party’s D.C. headquarters, and a plurality of voters suspect mismanagement is to blame. More At Rasmussen Reports: tinyurl.com/yawt7vem
The animosity between the DNC and its donors is unlikely to abate before the midterms. As the Wall Street Journal reports, “George Soros and his son Alex donated more than $400,000 to the Democratic National Committee during the 2018 midterms. They gave more than $1 million during the 2022 midterm election cycle, campaign finance records show. This year, they have yet to give the DNC a dollar.” At the same time, “Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, wrote steady checks to the DNC for years but during the midterms has yet to give money.”
Meanwhile, according to a report in the Washington Post, big-dollar donors are showering money on the GOP: “Nine of the top 10 individual donors in this midterm cycle are supporting Republicans … In the second quarter, GOP candidates got a boost from hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who put over $30 million behind Republican congressional candidates.”
At the end of last month, the GOP received more good financial news when Elon Musk authorized his super PAC (America PAC) to spend $100-$120 million to help elect Republicans.
As Axios reported, “America PAC will focus on door-knocking, digital advertising and direct mail aimed at turning out the conservative base, including voters who typically are less inclined to cast ballots in a non-presidential election year … America PAC, which has said it knocked on more than 10 million doors in 2024 across more than a half-dozen swing states, will coordinate with the other groups in the Republican ecosystem.”
This will obviously bolster the bulging war chest that even Democrat-friendly “news” outlets such as MS NOW deign to report:
“Republicans and their allied groups have opened a cash advantage of roughly half a billion dollars over Democrats. And the party’s own Democratic National Committee is already carrying more debt than money in the bank. In their most recent filings, the Republican National Committee and its related House and Senate fundraising committees, along with super PACs aligned with President Donald Trump and the GOP leadership, reported a combined $1 billion to spend.”
Despite the huge disparity between Republican fundraising and Democrat fundraising, particularly the performance of the RNC vs. the DNC, Ken Martin insists that he is doing a better job as party chair than did his predecessors. On July 20, he published a lengthy defense of his leadership on Substack which included this line: “The current DNC has raised the most money of any DNC without the White House in the 198-year history of the Democratic Party.”
Well then, why is the DNC more than $2 million in the hole? Martin does not supply an answer.
While Martin argues with DNC donors over his performance, President Trump is courting RNC donors. Just the News reports that Trump headlined a fundraiser recently at his golf club in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, where tickets went for as much as $150,000. Money isn’t everything. Still, as Just the News points out, “Historically, the party or candidate able to spend more on advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts tends to prevail.”
All of which brings us back to the pundits. Their nearly unanimous insistence that the Democrats will retake the House is based on midterm history and the polls. But history doesn’t vote, and the polls are often wrong. On the other hand, money talks and disgruntled donors walk. The GOP and its various PACs are entering the last phase of the midterms with a 2-to-1 cash advantage while big Democrat donors are in open revolt against the DNC.
The pundits should heed Yogi Berra’s admonition: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
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