By Bo Erickson and Dawn Kopecki
NEW YORK, Sept 11 (Reuters) - The two biggest Republican money players in the 2026 midterm elections – U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk – have finally turned on the spigot with less than eight weeks to go before Election Day.
With Republicans facing the prospect of losing control of at least one chamber of Congress, and polling showing Democrats more motivated to vote, a group connected to Trump has begun spending tens of millions of dollars to reserve blocks of TV ad time in close races.
Trump, whose approval rating is stuck at the lowest level of his political career, told reporters last week that he planned to allocate $400 million to $500 million to boost Republicans in the midterms.
The Trump-affiliated Republican political action committee No Going Back reserved more than $74 million in ad time this week across 15 different House races as well as Senate races in six battleground states: Alaska, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Ohio, according to political ad research firm AdImpact. More reservations were coming in Friday afternoon, it added.
The PAC has spent the most money, $15.7 million, locking in air time in Michigan where Abdul El-Sayed, who's backed by the Democratic Socialists group, pulled ahead of Republican Mike Rogers in the polls last month, AdImpact said. One of the ads it's airing in that market replays excerpts of interviews with El-Sayed in which he questioned whether police needed to carry guns and called for defunding the police. A spokesperson for El-Sayed didn't immediately return a request for comment.
Additionally, Musk’s America PAC and Trump's main fundraising arm MAGA Inc. have in recent days poured $2.6 million and $10 million respectively into the race for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas where state Attorney General Ken Paxton risks becoming the first Republican to lose to a Democrat in a statewide election there in decades.
About $7.1million of that money is being spent on attack ads against Democratic state lawmaker James Talarico who leads Paxton by 2.1 percentage points in an average of polls compiled by Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin.
"Republicans now must spend real money defending an expanded map," said Republican strategist Brad Dayspring of Purple Strategies in Alexandria, Virginia. “When you suddenly have to put millions into Texas, having President Trump and Musk open their wallets gives Republicans the ability to shore up vulnerable races without draining resources from the rest of the map."
Musk's America PAC expects to play a major role in Republican voter turnout efforts in key states, with spending on door knockers, digital ?advertising and direct-mail campaigns ahead of the November 3 election. He's already spent more than $7 million on digital advertising, text messages, voter calls, mailers and other printed materials, federal filings show. A spokesman for the PAC declined to comment.
NEW FUNDRAISING ARM
Trump's midterm war chest is supporting the new No Going Back super PAC, according to one person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified. It is unclear how much of Trump's war chest will be allocated through this new group.
Though Trump's MAGA Inc. and No Going Back aren’t yet formally affiliated with each other, they share the same treasurer – Charles Gantt – phone number and address at the same firm in Massachusetts. Gantt, MAGA Inc. and No Going Back didn’t return requests for comment.
It is not clear why the new PAC, which registered with the Federal Election Commission on September 1, was established but Republican strategist Ron Bonjean said it helps distance Trump and his MAGA movement from campaign donations as voters sour on the president.
Any advertising from the new PAC will be credited to No Going Back PAC instead of MAGA Inc., a name closely tied to Trump’s political brand.
"It’s a brilliant strategy because it takes MAGA out of the name. It takes any affiliation to Trump out of the name. It has an innocuous name that no one will care about as opposed to MAGA Inc., which could turn off independent voters right away," said Bonjean, a partner at bipartisan public affairs firm Rokk Solutions in Washington.
The new PAC has used some of the same vendors as MAGA Inc. to carry out its work and in August some officials from MAGA Inc. started telegraphing to Republicans their intention to create a new PAC, according to the person familiar with the operation.
The timing of No Going Back's registration will delay full disclosure of its donors until late October, according to FEC rules.
Trump capped the first day of his Republican Party's first-ever midterm convention in Dallas on Wednesday by proposing to pay every U.S. adult a $5,000 "Trump dividend" if the party wins the congressional elections. It was not immediately clear how the $5,000 payments would work or whether they would be legal.
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