Hundreds of millions of dollars in outside spending did not save Republican candidates from losing the most consequential races of the midterm election cycle.
Instead, Democratic candidates were able to raise more money from their supporters and get those people to vote for them, in some cases at levels unseen in a non-presidential year.
Candidates, parties and outside groups are projected to have spent nearly $12 billion in the House of Representatives and Senate elections heading into Nov. 3, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan nonprofit which analyzes campaign finance data. Democrats and their supporters will have spent $5.5 billion, just a slight edge over Republicans and their supporters, who will have spent $5.1 billion.
The difference
is where that money comes from. Ultra-wealthy Americans like SpaceX founder Elon Musk were the highest-spending donors of the campaign. But they saw little return on their investments as their candidates faltered in getting the Republican base to support them in historically red states.
"The Democrats were doing a better job this cycle of raising money for candidates and the Republicans were not," said Brendan Glavin, the director of insights at OpenSecrets.
James Talarico, the Democrat who won the Senate seat in Texas, raised $146.3 million, more than any candidate in the cycle, according to the latest numbers from the Federal Election Commission. Sen. Jon Ossoff, the Democrat who won reelection handily in Georgia, raised $136.6 million.
Of the 10 highest-raising candidates in the 2026 election cycle ranked by the Federal Election Commission, not a single one was a Republican. Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican who lost her reelection bid in Maine, came in at No. 11 with $25 million.
The next-highest Republican fundraiser was former Rep. Mike Rogers, who lost the Senate race in Michigan, at No. 15, followed by Ken Paxton, the Texas Republican who lost the Senate race to Talarico, at $22.3 million. His fundraising was so low that Talarico was out-raising Paxton by a more than 6-to-1 margin.
Musk spent $445 million in the election cycle to prop up Republican campaigns, but he spent more than half of that sum in September, as more and more polls were showing Democratic strength among voters in historically Republican states. Texas was a key part of that.
"There was a certain element in Texas of an emergency," Glavin said, of why Musk became so involved in political spending. "The conventional wisdom was, 'OK, Talarico is a good candidate, but we’ve seen this story before, and this is Texas.'
"There was not this idea that a lot of outside money would be flowing into the race at that point," Glavin said. "It was pretty quiet. And then it reached a point where things changed and they realized they had a real race on their hands."
Musk contributed $224.6 million in the month of September and $76.8 million in October, the OpenSecrets data shows. The money in the fall was split among his America PAC, which can spend unlimited amounts of money; and two Republican-aligned PACs, the Senate Leadership Fund and the Congressional Leadership Fund.
The most money America PAC spent in any race was $23.5 million in the Texas Senate race, including $18.8 million against Talarico and $3.9 million for Paxton, according to the latest numbers from the Federal Election Commission. That’s more money than Paxton raised for his own campaign in the latest numbers available.
"A candidate can have all the money in the world, but if their message doesn’t resonate with voters, or voters decide they don’t like them, then all the money’s not going to make the difference," Glavin said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Elon Musk spent $445 million on Republicans. It wasn't enough
