This is an adapted excerpt from the Sept. 3 episode of “All In.”
We’re entering the final sprint toward Election Day and Republicans are getting desperate.
Party leaders on Capitol Hill are warning their top donors, privately and publicly, in panicked tones, that they need more money to compete with Democratic spending. The head of the Republican Party’s Senate campaigns told Politico, “The only thing preventing us from having a great night in November is the massive financial disparity our party currently faces.”
It’s a fundraiser’s job to sound panicked and ask for more money. But, in this case, the panic may be warranted.
Now, it’s a fundraiser’s job to sound panicked and ask for more money, and Democratic donations have been through the roof in every election cycle since Donald Trump became the face of the Republican Party. But this race looks different. In this case, the panic may be warranted.
We don’t have full August fundraising numbers from both campaigns yet but in July, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign raised $310 million, more than double the $138.7 million that Trump raised in the same period.
The spending gap between the parties has also rarely if ever been as large as it is today. The situation for the GOP in several battleground states is stark. According to AdImpact, pro-Harris groups are spending roughly 10 times as much as pro-Trump groups to buy political ads in Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin. They’re spending three times as much in Arizona. That’s a massive spending disparity. The kind that makes a difference in a tight election.
But there are two swing states where, despite their huge disadvantage in fundraising, Republicans are keeping pace with Democratic spending: Georgia and Pennsylvania. Pro-Trump groups seem prepared to be outspent everywhere else that’s in play but not in Georgia or Pennsylvania, where they’re matching pro-Harris spending almost dollar for dollar.
The reason, of course, is the Electoral College — that bizarre anti-democratic system of presidential voting that says no matter how many people vote for you for president, you still need 270 state electors.
It’s a system that’s already caused some problems in America. Like when George W. Bush and Trump both lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College. In 2020, it was the perverse incentives of the Electoral College that gave Trump his opening to try and steal the election with a plan for fake electors — a plan that culminated in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The Electoral College is still there, operating in the background. All the strategic decisions that campaigns make are determined by it. What you’re seeing in the spending of the Trump campaign is that they’ve got one path to victory — and they’re putting literally all their money on it.
The Electoral College is still there, operating in the background. All the strategic decisions that campaigns make are determined by it. Envision this result — a map pretty much the same as 2020 with everyone holding the states their parties won that year. Except Trump flips Georgia and Pennsylvania, giving him 270 electoral votes to Harris’ 268. That means Trump becomes president again. That’s a nightmare map for Democrats. Harris could sweep the rest of the battleground states and win nationwide by millions of votes. But, as The Washington Post points out, “If [Trump] can hold North Carolina — the only one of these seven states he won in both 2016 and 2020” and he takes Georgia and Pennsylvania … it’s all over for Harris. This is a high-risk, high-reward strategy for Republicans. Pennsylvania is pivotal for them. As you might have gathered from Trump’s last few rallies there. Pennsylvania is almost as crucial for Harris too. Certainly, if she wins there — right now she leads in the polls, but it’s within the margin of error — she’s in very good shape. Harris can also win in some long shot scenarios without the state, if for example, she can hold Georgia and flip North Carolina. But for both campaigns right now, the Keystone State looks like a true keystone to victory. Join Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and many others on Saturday, Sept. 7, in Brooklyn, New York, for “MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024,” a first-of-its-kind live event. You’ll get to see your favorite hosts in person and hear thought-provoking conversations about what matters most in the final weeks of an unprecedented election cycle. Buy tickets here.
Chris Hayes hosts “All In with Chris Hayes” at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday through Friday on MS NOW. He is the editor-at-large at The Nation. A former fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Hayes was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. His latest book is “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource” (Penguin Press).
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
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