Senate GOP funds vanish
Digital splurge by Scott a flop
It was early 2021, and Sen. Rick Scott wanted to go big. The new chair of the Senate Republican campaign arm had a mind to modernize the place. One of his first decisions was to overhaul how the group raised money online.
Scott installed a new digital team, spearheaded by Donald Trump veterans, and greenlit an enormous wave of spending on digital ads — not to promote candidates but to discover more small contributors. Soon, the committee was smashing fundraising records. By the summer of 2021, Scott was boasting about “historic investments in digital fundraising that are already paying dividends.”
A year later, some of that braggadocio has vanished — along with most of the money.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee has long been a critical part of the party apparatus, recruiting candidates, supporting them with political infrastructure, designing campaign strategy and buying television ads.
By the end of July, the committee had collected a record $181.5 million — but had already spent more than 95 percent of what it had brought in. The Republican group entered August with just $23.2 million on hand, less than half of what the Senate Democratic committee had before the final intense phase of the midterm elections.
Now top Republicans are beginning to ask: Where did all the money go?
The answer, chiefly, is that Scott’s enormous gamble on finding new online donors has been a costly financial flop in 2022, according to a New York Times analysis of federal records and interviews with people briefed on the committee’s finances. Today, the NRSC is raising less than before Scott’s digital splurge.
Party leaders, including Sen. Mitch McConnell, are fretting aloud that Republicans could squander their shot at retaking the Senate in 2022, with money one factor, as some first-time candidates have struggled to gain traction. The NRSC was intended to be a party bulwark yet found itself recently canceling some TV ad reservations in key states.
The story of how the Senate GOP committee went from breaking financial records to breaking television reservations, told through interviews with more than two dozen Republican officials, actually begins with the rising revenues Scott bragged about last year.
The committee had squeezed donors with hyperaggressive new tactics. And all the money coming in obscured just how much the committee was spending advertising for donors. Then inflation sapped online giving for Republicans nationwide. And the money that had rolled in came at an ethical price.
One fundraising scheme used by the Senate committee, which has not previously been disclosed, involved sending an estimated millions of text messages that asked provocative questions — “Should Biden resign?” — followed by a request for cash: “Reply YES to donate.” Those who replied “YES” had their donation processed immediately, though the text did not reveal in advance where the money was going.
Privately, some Republicans complained the tactic was exploitative. WinRed, the party’s main donation-processing platform, recently stepped in and took the unusual step of blocking the committee from engaging in the practice, according to four people familiar with the matter.
One internal NRSC budget document from earlier this year, obtained by the Times, shows that $23.3 million was poured into investments to find new donors between June 2021 and January 2022. In that time, the contributors the organization found gave $6.1 million — a more than $17 million deficit.
Scott declined an interview request. His staff vigorously denied financial struggles, said some of the canceled television ads had been rebooked, and argued the digital spending would prove wise in time.
“We made the investment. We’re glad we did it. It will benefit the NRSC and the party as a whole for cycles to come,” said Chris Hartline, a spokesperson for Scott and the committee.
Yet as Republican chances to retake the Senate have slipped, a fullblown case of fingerpointing has erupted across Washington, with Scott a prime target. His handling of the committee’s finances has become conflated with other critiques, especially a flawed field of Republicans who have found themselves outspent on television.
Scott’s please-all-sides decision to stay out of contested 2022 primaries has been second-guessed, including by McConnell. Scott’s detractors accuse him of transforming the NRSC into the “National Rick Scott Committee” — and a vehicle for his presidential ambitions.
“The spending wouldn’t matter if the polling numbers looked better,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican lobbyist and NRSC donor. “To the extent the red wave is receding, people look for someone to blame.”
The financial fortunes of the group alone will not sink Republican chances in November. A super political action committee aligned with McConnell has more than $160 million in television reservations booked after Labor Day.
Hartline dismissed those questioning the group’s digital spending as “disgruntled former staff and vendors.” He said the $28 million invested had tripled its file of email addresses and phone numbers and added 160,000 donors.
“Our goal is to build the biggest GOP digital file to help the party now and in the future,” he said. He declined to discuss the texting scheme.
Hartline said the Senate Democratic arm has more money because it had not yet spent significantly on television. Scott, he said, had strategically spent early, with nearly $30 million on ads aiding Republicans through July.
That sum, however, is actually less than the $37.4 million the GOP committee reported in independent expenditures for candidates as of the same date two years ago.