US elections 2024: Democrats aim for Senate majority and pump $25 million to reach voters in 10 states, including Wisconsin, Texas and Florida

In order to defend their narrow majority in the Senate with a series of challenging election campaigns on Republican-dominated terrain, the Democrats are pumping $25 million into increased voter advertising in ten states.

The new spending by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, first disclosed to The Associated Press, comes less than two months before the Nov. 5 election and at a time when Democrats are benefiting from a fundraising boom since President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign in July and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the party's new leader.

“Impressive fielding makes all the difference in close races,” said DSCC Chairman Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan in a statement. “We reach every voter we need to win.”

The latest investment will be distributed across Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. The money will go toward efforts to defend five Democratic incumbents and open seats in Michigan, Maryland and Arizona that are currently in the Democratic majority, as well as efforts to oust Republican incumbents in Florida and Texas.

The use of the funds varies from state to state but includes hiring additional paid poll workers and poll workers; digital organizing programs targeting specific groups of voters online; text messaging programs; and in-person organizing events targeting the younger generation and non-white voters.

Democrats currently hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate, a result that includes independent senators who caucus with Democrats. However, in November's 33 regular Senate elections, Democrats will have to defend 23 seats, counting the independent senators who caucus with them, to achieve their majority.

They have devoted few national resources to West Virginia, a Republican-leaning state where former Democrat and now independent Senator Joe Manchin is retiring.

The playing field leaves Democrats little room for error. If they lose West Virginia and keep all the other seats, they would still have to beat Florida Senator Rick Scott or Texas Senator Ted Cruz to win the majority, or hope Harris wins the presidential election – an outcome that would allow her running mate, Tim Walz, to cast the tie-breaking vote for Democrats for vice president, just as Harris did in a 50-50 Senate during the first two years of Biden's administration.

The DSCC declined to disclose how the $25 million will be distributed by state. But it's no secret that the defense of the Democrats' majority begins with tough re-election campaigns for Senators Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Both are relatively popular incumbents with long tenures, but they are running in states where Donald Trump, the former president and current Republican nominee, has twice won by comfortable margins. That means Tester and Brown would need a significant number of voters to split their votes between Trump and their Senate candidate.

Senate Democrats have already funded field offices in Montana and Ohio, since those are not battleground states where Harris' campaign team is running coordinated Democratic campaign efforts. And even if the money comes from the state coffers, the additional local spending will reinforce the two Democratic senators' strategy to distance themselves from Harris and the national party.

Five of the 10 states receiving money overlap with the contested presidential election map: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Biden won all of them four years ago, while Trump won all but Nevada in 2016. Both presidential campaigns view the states as tiebreakers this fall.

The voter outreach spending comes in addition to an ongoing $79 million advertising campaign by the Democrats' Senate campaign arm and builds on investments in personnel and infrastructure that the party's national arm has already made.

The spending comes after Harris, who has raised more than $500 million since assuming the Democratic presidential nomination in July, announced plans to distribute $25 million to party committees focused on lower-ballot races. The Senate and House Democrats' respective campaigns each received $10 million of that money, an acknowledgment that Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill would make a Harris presidency more successful and that Harris and lower-ballot Democrats can help each other at the ballot box.

Democratic aides said local spending was always in the Senate committee's plans, but Harris' bounty certainly expands options for all party-affiliated campaign groups. Democrats believe they have better campaign infrastructure than Trump and the rest of the Republican Party in an election year when the White House and control of Capitol Hill could be decided by small changes in turnout among the parties' core voters and a small group of persuadable voters.

Still, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has raised more money and spent more than Senate Democrats this cycle, even though Democrats had more cash on hand at the end of July, the last reporting period submitted to the Federal Election Committee.

As of July 31, the NRSC had raised $181.3 million and spent $138.5 million. Republicans reported a balance of $51 million. Democrats had raised $154 million and spent $103.3 million.

They reported a balance of $59.3 million.