Today, Explained - Can you buy the midterms?

Episode Date: October 17, 2026

Republicans are entering the midterm home stretch with a staggering $1 billion campaign war chest. Will it make a difference?  This show was edited by Kasia Broussalian, fact checked by Esther Gim, mixed by Vasilis Fotopoulos, video edited by Christopher Snyder, and hosted by Astead Herndon. Photo caption: President Donald Trump speaks during an election rally for local Republican candidates in Youngstown, Ohio. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) You can also watch this episode on youtube.com/vox. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. If you enjoy our reporting and want to learn more, sign up for Astead’s weekly newsletter, Midterms, Actually. Just go to www.vox.com/midtermsactually to learn more, and get in-depth analysis about this year’s election right to your inbox.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So instead of hearing this lovely track, you'll hear this in seconds. Hello, intact insurance. Republicans have a not-so-secret weapon in the midterm elections. They're flush with cash. Republicans are heading into the midterm home stretch with a huge money advantage. Estimates say that they have about $1 billion in spendable campaign money across several outlets. Whether you just see, I'm going to spend whatever amount of money necessary to try and help us. Elon Musk alone has spent more than $250 million of his own money for this year's mid-term.

elections. And overall, the GOP will be able to outspend Democrats to the tune of $400 to 500 million. But in a year where President Trump's approval rating has hit record lows, and he's clearly dragging down his entire party, will all that money even matter? It's important, but it doesn't determine the outcome of elections. Yeah. But it is more important the lower the election. Shane Goldmacher is a national political correspondent for the New York Times. And this week, he's here to help us think about all things money. When you talk about how many seats can the Democrats gain, the Republican money is seen as a real limiter on Democratic chances.

Coming up on America, actually, it's all about the Benjamin. Is the GOP spending its way to victory? Or are they setting a billion dollars on fire? All right, let's be honest. Republicans have an uphill task this November, with less than three weeks to go until election Today, boulders are extremely upset about rising inflation, sky-high prices, and a war with Iran that nobody asked for. But if there's one bright spot for the GOP, it's an important one.

Republicans have a lot of money. Between Donald Trump's war chest, endless spending from tech leaders like Musk and Republican-aligned super PACs, the GOP has about a billion dollars to spend in this November election, almost twice as much as comparable Democratic groups. Where is all this money coming from? Where does it actually go? And what can we learn about the upcoming 2028 election when we look at the fundraising

landscape of 2026? They're flush with cash. Shane, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate your time. I'm glad to be here. A couple weeks ago, we asked, like, what is the GOP strategy to try to win? Because it can kind of seem a little muddied.

And one of the answers we got is they simply have more dollars than Democrats. Everyone's talking about this GOP money advantage, but how big is it really? And where is it coming from? I mean, it's bigger than I've basically seen in the last 20 years. And it's almost entirely coming from big donors. So right now, President Trump has a super PAC. It had about $400 million in it at the beginning of September. And there was no Democratic counterpart. And then the Republican National Committee, which is functionally controlled by Trump, had another $130 million more than Democrats because the DNC was literally more debts than cash. So just those two things, that's a half a billion dollars. I mean, you kind of alluded to this.

I was like, is this a bigger edge than we typically see? But you're saying this is. This is kind of a historic edge. In recent elections, it's actually been the Democrats that have had more money. So it's not just a huge Republican edge. it's a reversal, right? In 2024, Kamala Harris outspent Donald Trump significantly in the general election. In 2020, Joe Biden significantly outspent Donald Trump in the general.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton and in the midterms along the way, same story. And so this is a switch. And when you talk about how many seats can the Democrats gain, which is mostly what we're talking about, looking at the political landscape, given how unpopular Trump is, the Republican money is seen as a real limiter on Democratic chances. I mean, big picture, I've covered money in politics for a long time. It's important, but it doesn't determine the outcome of elections. But it is more important the lower the election, right?

What do you mean? In a presidential race, normal people are paying attention. You might watch the debate. You were talking about it with your friends and family. People are not watching debates for, like, their local House candidate. They may not know that there's a local House candidate. they will know if there's mailers in their mailbox and ads that they see. And it's a bigger share of what they know.

And so when you talk about the House, which is Democrats are trying to flip the House and then run up the score a little bit to have an actual governing majority, these are the races where I think this money can make a really big difference. Okay. I want to dig into that more. But before that, I mean, I'm just interested in how Trump has gained such an advantage. Do we know anything specific about the people putting in money to the Trump Super PAC and the R&C to give them such a league? Yeah, I mean, most of these folks are disclosed. And, I mean, Trump has been pretty open about raising money from the very moment that he won. He was raising money for the Super PAC immediately.

He never stopped raising money once he got into office. And he's been pretty clear that, like, he is in business to help people who are helping him. Yeah, yeah, right? And so there are big crypto industries that are giving money that are expecting or hoping for favorable regulation. from the administration. So it's a lot of big businesses. It's a lot of wealthy Republicans who generally support him anyway.

And there are industry groups that see benefit to being in favor with a White House that is playing favorites. Yeah, I mean, that's what I was going to ask. Like, I will never forget, obviously, the scene from Trump's second inauguration when he had the Zuckerbergs and the Bezos

and the Elon Musk behind him. Is that how I should think about the people funding this donor advantage? Is it tech oligarchs? Is it tech forward? There's a lot of tech. I wouldn't say it's exclusively. And Musk, by the way, is like an extra pot of money in addition to the project. So we talk about like, you know, we're say a half a billion dollars, just those two groups.

I can get up closer to a billion when you. In terms of the Republican advantage, if you add in people like Elon Musk. Elon Musk, the world's richest person is said to be spending at least $200 million. So that's a bigger chunk. He is given some money directly to the Trump super PAC. He's given some money to these congressional super PACs. there's so much money. It's hard to say all of it's from any one group. Got it. But certainly their crypto industry in particular is, again, separate from these groups spending for Republicans.

I mean, obviously this comes at Trump has hit his lowest point in popularity among public opinion. Is this just quit pro crow? Like, is this just a group of businesses who think, hey, no matter how unpopular this guy is, it is worth investing in him and his party because they're going to, you know, regulate or not regulate in a way that's, favorable for us. I think it's not quite just that. I think a lot of this money came in early, too, right? He raised a ton of this money when he was not so unpopular. And like, if you want to say something smart that he did, it was that, right? He did it before all this downturn after. All throughout 2025, he was raising all of this money. You know, and I don't want to overstate the Republican advantage. A lot of these Democratic candidates are raising a ton of money. They're raising a ton of money online. James Tala Rico sort of stands out as maybe the peak example of this.

You know, the Texas Senate race is the most expensive race in the country right now. And Republicans are pouring $200 million to save the nominee there. Ken Paxton, who has faced a bunch of scandals. So a big chunk of that advantage is going to Texas. And so the Democrats have put very little money from the outside groups in Texas. But Tala Rico has, like, captured the imagination of these small Democratic donors. And he's raised tens and tens. and tens of millions of dollars.

I would be shocked if he doesn't hit $100 million by the end of the cycle. And just to wonk out for 15 seconds, he gets to buy cheaper television ads. Because of Texas. Because they're rules if you were a federal candidate. You can buy a TV ad that that Super PAC pays more money for. And so that $200 million, he might be able to offset that with $75 million. Got it. Like there's some advantages of candidate money.

You mentioned how much the GOP is spending in Texas, which we should acknowledge is kind of shocking, considering obviously Texas' historical tendency to vote for Republicans. The map itself kind of tells us where at least the party thinks it's doing better or worse. You reported how the GOP is pulling back in North Carolina. So thinking about them dumping money into the Texas race, them pulling money out of the North Carolina Senate race, what should we take from that in terms of how the GOP sees its own landscape when it comes to the federal races? I mean, so in October, you can, to some extent, stop listening to what the political strategists are saying. Yeah, I totally agree.

And just start watching what they're doing, right? So they say, oh, North Carolina is still about it. Well, if you pull all your money out of North Carolina, you have basically given up the state, right? You do not think. It is a winnable race. So where have Republicans put that money? Yeah. They put it into South Carolina. Interesting. Right next door.

To protect a seat that was once thought on the Senate front to be safe for Republicans. Yeah, this is the former Lindsey Grams seat that his sister is now running in. There's concerns about, is she well-known enough, popular enough? It wasn't like the Graham name was golden in South Carolina. And then even more of it is gone to Kansas. Yeah. So if you're the Republican Party and you're pulling money out of a state in North Carolina that hasn't elected a Democrat since 2008 and then putting it into a place that hasn't elected one since 1932,

that tells you where the bar is moving, the risk for Democrats right now. is a little bit like the inverse of what happened in 2022, which is an election that you and I were covering together. That was a midterm where there was all this talk of a red wave, right? And it was a blue state red wave. And, you know, I spent time in Rhode Island where Republicans were going to flip a Rhode Island seat and they were going to flip these seats in New York. And they did flip seats.

They took the house. But that wave wasn't big enough to win those blue states. And I think the concern for Democrats right now is there might be a wave. But like, Kansas is a real. It's got a big red wall, right? Like, it's hard to beat that kind of institutional advantage for the Republican Party. Yeah, there's a lot of places in which the backlash to Trump or how people are feeling about his unpopularity where Democrats feel that will give them over the standard. And then there's another standard for these places where the map expands, places they haven't won big Senate races for a long time, where these marginal money differences or the way the maps are drawn in House races could play a bigger role.

Yeah, I mean, you talk about the money, right? I think Kansas is a good example. Right now, it's mostly Republican money there, right? Because there isn't enough Democratic money to spread and cover all the places the Republicans are playing. So if you're the only side advertising, that's also a really big advantage, right? In these races, if you only get mailers or TV ads from one party, it has a much bigger impact because it's not muddied waters of everybody hates everybody. Let's stick with the GOP for a second. Is there any particular issue that they're highlighting with all of this money?

I think back to 2024 and the prominence of Trump's kind of famous slash infamous they, them ad that he ran against Kamala Harris. Kamala supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners. Are they running on that same sort of message? Is there something we can glean about their issue focus from where this money's going? There are definitely a lot of ads on exactly that same transgender issue. But I think that it's playing differently. and I think it's because the effectiveness of that ad is a little misunderstood.

Yeah, laid out. I feel like people think this was an ad and was effective because it was about transgender issues and they were unpopular and that hurt Kamleros. And I'm not disagreeing with that part of it, but the ad was actually about something else also. It was that Democrats felt like they were focused on the wrong things while your life sucked.

Yeah. Things were more expensive and they are for they, them. The combo. And not you because they're not focused on economic issues where you're struggling and they're ignoring that inflation is bad and they're saying they wouldn't make any changes to how Joe Biden governed for the last four years. And so now Republicans are running those same ads, these same Democratic candidates are for they, them, or different versions of, you know, biological men and women's sports. And the problem is I think that the mood music

of the election has changed because if you are even paying moderate attention, you hear Democrats constantly talking about the economy. Literally, always. We've heard. heard Democrats all year basically concede the argument that they were too focused on non-economic issues in 2024. And so what you're saying, it sounds like, is the Republicans are running those same ads, but it might not hit the same because Democrats have clearly changed their message. Yeah, the power of that ad was the combination of the issue that it was about, but what was really about, which is they're focused on the wrong things. And so if you look at the totality of the television ads, I see.

see Democratic candidates for House and for Senate standing at a gas pump, standing in a grocery store, talking about cost of living. Now, Republicans are doing some of that too, but they're looking for something to run on because when they talk about cost issues, this is the same Biden Democrats were in two years ago. Absolutely. They're getting the blame. It's one of the great ironies of right now. I hear so many Republicans trying to talk people out of their concern about their economic situation. And I'm sitting there thinking, you sound exactly like these Democrats were during the Biden inflation moment. And Republicans understood how that was a losing tactic.

I mean, it's a sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, right? You see some Republicans that are trying to create distance from President Trump on some of these economic issues. In Michigan, you've got Mike Rogers, who's a Republican-Sand-a candidate, who's sitting at a bar and cracks open a Labat blue, which is from Canada, and says, we know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this tariff war now. The problem is it's October and, it's not that hard to find that he was on the other side of that issue 12 months ago.

He was on the other side of the issue of the worn around nine months ago. And so they know the Republican Party has supported Trump's actions. In general, Trump has had such a hold on the Republican Party that it is a really hard sell to convince a voter that you're a different kind of Republican because there have been so few different kinds of Republicans. Yes. He's picked them off one by one in a lot of those primaries. I'm curious about like the timing here. Like considering how close we are. election day?

Like, what are they actually spending this money on? Like, is it just more ads? Is it just more mailers? Like, is it just a greater frequency of the things they've already been doing? Or does the money do something differently, different in the late stages? I mean, it's mostly just more and more of the same.

You know, I was in Pennsylvania this month and, you know, trying to watch, I was trying to watch political ads on YouTube for various races. And I was getting pre-roll of three political ads before I watched the political ads. I was trying to watch. It was going to come right to you.

And so, again, so much of our elections is decided now by people who are actively trying not to consume political news, right, people who don't want to read about this. On purpose. Avoiding it on purpose. So it costs more money to reach people who are avoiding it on purpose, right? It used to be, okay, you buy ads and you run on the local news at 630, right? Well, those people are probably already voting, and they've probably already decided. You're trying to reach the young person who's, like, working in a mechanic shop.

who doesn't want to see any of this. And so you have to find them on their phone somewhere. You have to find them in their mailbox. Look, there is some door knocking. There are some organizing things that happen, but most of the money is various versions of advertising. Yeah, and we heard this in a lot of forums. We did an episode about Latino voters,

and we were talking about the amount of money that has to be spent to reach people, not only in their own language, but how different people kind of consume news and information. You can apply that across a lot of these demographic groups and these races. But you mentioned something I also had a question about, which is the ground game.

Like, we're obviously thinking so much about ads and mailers. I hear less people, maybe Sands, the kind of left DSA wing of Democrats, talking about door-to-door-door knocking, the kind of original organizing playbook made popular by the Obamas or the Stacey Abrams of the world. Like, are they off that? Like, are we back to just TV ads? I think that there is a lot of efforts at organizing.

The truth is that when you think about a landscape where, parties can pull their money out of North Carolina and put it into Kansas. You can do that quickly. You can't do that with organizers. Right. And so a lot of the investment in these kinds of maps where things shift is things that are mobile. And so, like, is there some more organizing in a place like Maine where everybody knew from the beginning and to the end that there's going to be a competitive race there?

And is there more mobilizing in a state like Michigan right now where the Democratic nominee has young people more excited? Candidate dependents, state dependence. State dependent, candidate dependent. I mean, we just did a poll of all the Senate races, and my colleague Nate Cohn, said that Abdul Al-Said in Michigan has a lot of weaknesses, but it ran up one of the best scores he has ever seen among young people.

So this is a candidate who might have the potential to organize people in college towns to pump up the vote there or go knock doors in other places. So it really is candidate and state-specific. After the break, how Democrats are playing the money support for the show comes from Ramp. To quote Benjamin Franklin, which I do with great frequency, time is money. Did he really say that? He said that all the way back in 1748, says Ramp.

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if it's just going to break when you do. Get the good stuff in store at Marshalls today. Uh, hold music. Not what you want to hear when a pipe dispersed in your basement is flooding. That's why intact insurance answers 2 million claim calls per year within 20 seconds. So instead of hearing this lovely track, you'll hear this in seconds. Hello, intact insurance.

On the Democratic side, like, considering this GOP edge, what are the races that you've currently describe as underfunded? Is it those marginal house races, maybe ones that are outside the battleground landscape? Are we talking state and local races? Like, where do the Democrats wish they had more money? Number one is governor races, actually, that when you look, where do Democratic donors swoon? It's Senate races more than anything, right? There are basically quasi-anonymous Democrats who have run for Senate that the party has rallied behind and raised $100 million before.

Even for races that are long shots. Yeah, right? Like Tala Rico was raising a ton of money in Texas. One of the all-time greatest fundraisers in Democratic history on the Internet was Jamie Harrison when he ran against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. And he lost by 10 points. But Democratic donors were dreaming, dreaming of this particular candidate in this particular race at that moment, there are no candidates for governor who have made people swoon like this in recent years. And so Tala Rico is raising all this money.

But in Texas also, Gina Hino-ho says the Democratic candidate for governor does not have that kind of money. And she's running against Greg Abbott, who had $100 million. What should we ascribe that to? Like, is it just they love someone who can play a Trump foil? I mean, Senate candidates might be like, you know, folks who are. more thinking about presidential races, so there's more of a eye toward the future. I mean, there's an undeniable importance to these governors' races. I remember Democrats, I think sure we both do, kind of saying four or five years ago, we understand the importance of these state races or

even when it comes to things like certifying the election. You sure want a Democratic governor, rather than maybe someone who would be more beholden to Trump on issues that matter to that party. Like, why then has there been such less of a focus on governor's races? I mean, I think there's actually a pretty simple answer, which is, like, if you don't live in the state, it doesn't impact you. Yeah. Right? If you, if you're a small donor and you live in California, you can be excited about a Senate candidate because, like, you want Democrats to control the Senate. Are you as excited about a Democratic governor of Georgia? Like, probably not the same. But I do think it's interesting. Georgia, John Ossoff, has raised a ton of money on the internet. And

Kisha Lans Bottoms is the Democratic nominee. She's getting crushed in the money race because she's running against a billionaire who's spending all of his own money. But for all the people who want John Ossoff to be a candidate for president, one of the biggest factors for his ability to run is whether she wins.

Because if there's a Republican governor and he would become the president, that governor would pick his replacement. And so, you know, there's some strategy for donors, but there's really, I think the basic thing on governor's races is you don't live in that state. So like, are you so excited about flipping a race in Iowa? Probably not. We just got back from a nominee Wisconsin when we were following Democratic efforts to win a trifect in that state. And they were making us, they were making kind of

the counter to your argument saying, you know, whether Democrats have control of the state legislature alongside the governor's mansion matters more than just to people here. It will matter in terms of, you know, proving a proof point about democratic governance in the state or or they said the point that I made about whether you're trying to certify an election or not. But as you're saying, like, those are dots folks have to connect that aren't as explicit as does my party have more than 50 senators or not. And so what it sounds like is that's a pretty big barrier in terms of getting the kind of investment they may need, which could matter a lot in the specifically races like that. I mean, it's hard to argue that the governors of these key presidential

battlegrounds aren't some of the most important races on the ballot this year. And this is, by the way, a problem with both parties. Like the Republican national donors and these super PACs, they also don't fund these governor's races at the same level. So it's not just a Democratic issue, but it's more acute because Democrats are so well funded at the small donor level that that sort of falling in love versus practicality doesn't. Yeah, you mentioned the kind of way Democrats have grown their small dollar fundraising arm, which I know has been a sort of success of the Trump era. How has that impacted the party? Like, how do we think about the way the small dollar rise among Democrats has affected how they run? Has it? I think it has the potential to affect it more than it has. I think that

most candidates haven't dramatically changed how they're running. The number of people who run exclusively with online small donors remains pretty small. It's the Bernie Sanders is of the world. It's the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's of the world. There's actually sort of like a barbell, which is you need all these small dollar donors on the internet, and you kind of need some billionaires to fund a super PAC too. And the old...

Both not either-or for most Democrats. Most these people want both of these things, because you don't want to be too dependent on either-or, right? Like, what if you take a position that is out of line with those small dollar donors and they cut you off, right? Just like you could take a position out of line with the big that they cut you off to. So a lot of people do some bet hedging there. I mean, there's sort of this hollowing out of the old, you know, bundler model of going, you know, there's a reason that every Democrat can say I no longer take corporate pack money.

Yeah, lay that out for me because they all say that, but still, we're still talking about the influence of these big dollar donations. Like, how was that true? How is that true-ish? I mean, the first thing is for most of these people, yeah, they do not accept corporate pack money because corporate pack money isn't a big share of the money available. It is available if you're in Congress forever and you're in a safe seat and you don't want to work for it. And you go around K Street and they hold a little events for you and you raise a few hundred thousand dollars. That exists.

But if you're really ambitious and you're a Democrat, you're like, that's not worth it. I can raise more online saying I don't take that money. But there's still money. And by the way, you might not want to raise some of these money. you might want to neutralize the money coming in, right? I think about, you know, the new players each election cycle, you've got the AI industry that's come in. Hundreds of millions of dollars,

there are real concerns, Democrats and Republicans, for saying something that's going to anger a particular set of donors who they can spend so much money to drown out your message. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does feel like a particular clash on that issue itself, because, you know, we've been tracking the kind of grassroots backlash to the, the rise of AI, you know, certainly things like data centers. And that's been really clear,

even in rural communities, like when we were in Monominee. But at the same time, the money is flowing in ways that have clearly impacted the political landscape. Like, is that the clearest tension point that we can see from the kind of big donors to where the bases of parties are? Because it's now not even just Democrats, but some Republicans who are now kind of coming up against what seems to be a grassroots backlash to some of that support. I think data centers is scrambling the regular partisan coalition. Yeah. And I think voters don't know which parties are to blame or where they stand on this issue.

And so you see Republican governors flipping their position to become more anti-Data center. Yep, Greg Abbott's a good example. And you see Democratic governors flipping their position to become more anti-Data center. in Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, there are numerous races where both parties are running anti-Data Center ads in the same race. And I think a lot of these things are, well, do voters just intuitively know that one party is for this or not? They don't. Other than Donald Trump right now is outspoken for data centers, but his whole party's not actually aligned with him on this yet. And so I think you see the specter of big money in that.

I think that when you look long term, I think politicians have no idea where it's going. Data Centers is like the issue in 2026, but that's like the table stakes to, does this change our economy? Does this change how your life functions? And you don't want to be on the wrong side of that. It doesn't matter if one side has money

and everybody else lost their jobs and blames the people with money. So there's a real risk aversion right now, and I don't think that it just feels really fluid. I wanted to ask about APEC, you know, those donations were such a huge flashpoint. in the primaries, what's that group doing in the general election? Or was that more of a story that's from the factional fights, you know, thinking about Michigan,

thinking about other places? What's their general election impact? Is there one? I think their impact in the general election is really to be seen. They have not been loud about where they're spending money. They weren't necessarily loud in advance of some of these Democratic primaries. They tried to keep a little bit hidden. Yeah.

They were a big factor because the shift in perspective on it, Israel among Democratic voters has been profound. Also, Elsa had made them a factor. Yeah. They spent a ton of money, and he made them a centerpiece of that race. If they're spending in Michigan and the general election, they haven't done in a way that we've seen it publicly yet. So they're not a driving force of, like, how we're describing these races. I think the bigger fight for that community was, can you not lose the Democratic Party?

And that was the big fight this year. And that'll be the fight next year, too. You know, fundraising is a huge part of what sets the presidential candidates apart from one another. We know this. The money game among those candidates has already started. Is there something you can tell us about what they've been doing in the midterms in advance of an open presidential contest? Is there anyone who's quietly built some donor network that's worth thinking about? Is there someone who stood out as a particularly effective fundraiser when we think about the 2028 crowd? Let me give you my favorite stat from the last Democratic primary.

which is that Mike Bloomberg spent twice as much as Tom Steyer, who spent twice as much as Bernie Sanders, who spent twice as much as Joe Biden, who became the Democratic nominee. Yep, yep. And so money isn't going to determine who wins the next Democratic presidential primary. I mean, one person who has unlimited money functionally is J.B. Prisker. Yep. He's a billionaire, the governor of Illinois, and he is spending his money right now to help other Democrats. There's a good way to make friends, right?

If your money is helping elect people and making various constituency groups feel heard and felt, that's happening online. I don't know that you're seeing it in the midterms, but you saw it last year with his Prop 50. Gavin Newsom was able to raise a ton of money online. And we mentioned her already. Alexandria Ocasic Cortez continues to have the ability to raise money online unlike any other member of the House. and really unlike anybody else at national politics besides Bernie Sanders. My last question is kind of like just an open one. Like, what's an under explored story that we should be following going forward when it comes to campaign cash or both parties' relationship with money?

One of my big questions is what happens to Republican small dollar fundraising in that post-Trump era? Because there have basically not been any other Republicans who have excited donors for a decade. Not J.D. Vance? I have not seen evidence. J.D. Vance was not a good fundraiser before he was joining the ticket with Donald Trump. His primary run was funded chiefly by Peter Thiel through a Super PAC when he ran for Senate. You know, there are candidates who raise some money, but nothing on the scale of what these Democratic candidates have been able to raise online. When you talk about that Trump era turning of a page at some point, are there others who are going to get Republican small donors excited? We don't know. We have. haven't seen it yet. Yeah. That is such an interesting question. We always think about it from the vote, like, enthusiasm point. Like, is there anybody who reaches that same type of voter who's distant from politics? We know that there's a type of voter who literally only comes out if Trump is on the ballot. But you're talking about a related point, which is we haven't really seen evidence that another type of candidate drives the financial backing of Donald Trump, particularly from

the small donor side. And that's a big open question because Democrats, have shown that ability to really get behind someone from the bottom up. Yeah. Like, if you look at how all of the Republican Party committees raise their money, it's Trump, Trump, Trump messaging, even as Trump has fallen in popularity. Yeah. There's the donor base online, it's still pro-Trump. That is interesting.

Shane, thank you so much for coming in. Hey, thanks for having me. Okay, so a couple takeaways after talking with Shane. One, money isn't everything, especially in a race that's been. become so nationalized. People know who's responsible for high inflation. They know who started the war with Iran. And no amount of TV advertisements calling Democrats socialists and communists is going to change that. Second, I think the GOP's big spending advantage speaks to some of the reasons why Trump has gotten so unpopular in the first place. This was supposed to be a president

for the working class, a president who bought prices down. And in fact, the opposite has happened in his second term. Trump has made this administration a safe haven for crypto companies, prediction markets, and tech oligarchs. Trump and the elites around him are having a blast this presidency. That's why they're giving them so much money. It's the rest of us who aren't having fun. And that's why he's facing a midterms backlash. America actually will be in your feeds every Saturday with an interesting interview in politics or culture. And you can also listen to America Actually, wherever you get your podcast or in the Today Explained feed. If you enjoy our reporting and you want to learn more, sign up for our weekly midterms newsletter.

It's called Midterms Actually. Go to Vox.com slash midterms actually to sign up. That's Vox.com slash midterms actually. See you next week and cue the music. America Actually will be in your feeds every Saturday with an interesting interview in culture or politics. You can also watch these episodes on the Vox YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube.com slash Vox or click the link in the show notes. If you enjoy our reporting and you want to learn more, sign up for my weekly newsletter, Midterms Actually.

Go to Vox.com slash midterms actually to learn more. That's Vox.com slash midterms actually. This show was edited by Kasha Bersalian, fact checked by Esther Gim and mixed by Vaz Phatopoulos. Christopher Snyder is our video editor and Koon Nui is our senior art director. Our executive producer is Christina Valis, and our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Additional support for Miranda, David Tadishore, and Nisha Chittal.

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