Senate Republican Party campaigns have broken multiple fundraising records this year as they look to hold onto their slim majority.
The Senate's GOP campaign arm, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) announced this week it raised $35.6 million over the three-month period between April 1 and June 30. The group posted a record-breaking month of June haul of $14 million and adds to their $30.5 million in cash-on-hand. Democrats are looking to capitalize on President Donald Trump's plummeting poll numbers amid the coronavirus pandemic and among women and minorities.
The NRSC's Democratic fundraising counterparts in the senate are not far behind, amassing $34 million in the second quarter and $13.6 million in June alone. The DSCC has raised $37.7 million in cash-on-hand as they look to boost their candidates into office and retake the senate majority.
The current 116th Congress is made up of 53 seats held by Republican Party senators and 45 held by Democratic Party senators. The two Independents, Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, both caucus with the Democrats. The Democrats would need to win a net of four seats to retake the upper chamber in November and only three should former Vice President Joe Biden defeat Trump.
An aggregation of current polls show incumbent Senate Republicans trailing in five states: Colorado, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina and Arizona. The NRSC issued a statement Monday touting the work of the group's chairman, Indiana GOP Senator Todd Young, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—who is facing his own tough challenge in Kentucky from retired Marine Amy McGrath.
"Despite a challenging environment, Senator Young, Leader McConnell and the entire team at the NRSC continue to break every fundraising record on the books," NRSC spokesman Jesse Hunt said Monday. "People understand how important a Republican-controlled Senate is to our country's recovery, and they're responding to make sure campaigns have all the support they need this election season."
Recent polls show that Trump, a president routinely touted by GOP senators in speeches to their home state constituents, has fallen considerably across the country. State-by-state and national polls from Fox News, ABC News, Washington Post, Marquette and Quinnipiac show Trump falling behind as much as double-digits to Biden.
Both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have responded to the sagging poll numbers by claiming the pollster system as a whole is "broken."
But the NRSC's fundraising records only tell part of the story, as many of the GOP's most "at-risk" senate candidates have failed to out-raise their Democratic challengers. Both Maine Senator Susan Collins and North Carolina senator Thom Tillis only managed to raise a fraction of their Democratic counterparts. Maine Democratic senate candidate Sara Gideon, the current Speaker of the House in the state, raised $9.4 million in the second quarter while Collins only pulled in $3.6 million.
In South Carolina, Democratic senate candidate Jaime Harrison set a statewide fundraising record for the second quarter as he looks to defeat longtime incumbent Lindsey Graham. Harrison raised about $2 million more than Graham in the first quarter of the election cycle.
On the other hand, veteran GOP Senate Leader McConnell has been out-raised by McGrath in Kentucky by about $10 million. But McConnell has maintained more cash-on-hand in his campaign coffers, the Courier-Journal reported.
Newsweek reached out to several senate campaign offices and the DSCC for additional fundraising remarks Monday afternoon but did not receive replies before publication.
