5 Takeaways From the Latest Campaign Finance Reports

The 2018 midterm elections are expected to shatter spending records, and campaign finance reports filed Thursday provided a glimpse inside frenzied final fundraising pushes, while revealing how much money each side has left to spend in the final weeks before Election Day.

Some Democratic candidates benefited from a surge in small donations after opposing the confirmation of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, while the party’s major donors helped their side’s super PACs outpace their Republican counterparts in raising money. Yet the reports show that leading national committees supporting Republicans ended up with more money in the bank last week.

The reports, which were filed with the Federal Election Commission, covered the period from the beginning of the month through Oct. 17, offering the last comprehensive portrait of the campaign finance landscape before the election.

Down the homestretch, the remaining cash will most likely be spent on voter-mobilization efforts and last-minute advertising barrages that will blanket the airwaves and social media feeds of voters in targeted states and districts.

In at least some cases, the campaigns and the committees will be tailoring their spending to react to a force not reflected in the filings — President Donald Trump’s dominance of the political debate in the campaign’s final weeks. His polarizing — and at times factually challenged — closing arguments about immigration, creeping socialism and the Supreme Court have nationalized the race, attracting saturation media coverage, the value of which dwarfs the amounts most campaigns or super PACs can spend on ads.

The Democrats’ three party committees and their two main congressional super PACs outraised their Republican counterparts in the first 17 days of the month — $110 million to $79 million, including loans — but the Republican committees finished with more money in the bank.

Thanks in part to lower spending rates, the Republican committees had a total of nearly $140 million on hand at the end of the day Oct. 17, versus nearly $108 million for the Democratic committees.

In a significant boost for Democrats hoping to claw back control of one or both chambers of Congress, their side’s super PACs outraised their Republican counterparts on the strength of massive checks from wealthy partisans.

The Republican committees included in this tally are the Republican National Committee, the party’s two congressional campaign arms — the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee — as well as the super PAC focused on the party’s House candidates, the Congressional Leadership Fund, and the one helping its Senate candidates, the Senate Leadership Fund.

The Democratic committees included in this analysis are the Democratic National Committee, the party’s two congressional campaign arms — the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — as well as the super PAC focused on the party’s House candidates, House Majority PAC, and the one helping its Senate candidates, Senate Majority PAC.

Trump’s campaign was not required to file a finance report Thursday, because he is not up for election next month. But his fundraising appeal trickled down to other committees that are directly involved in the midterms.

His campaign committees, which have raised a remarkable $106 million since his election, have transferred more than $22 million to the Republican National Committee over the course of the election cycle, according to the filings. And Trump’s campaign said it transferred another $3 million to the RNC this week, which is not reflected in the filings, and planned to begin a $6 million television and digital midterm advertising campaign on Monday that will run through Election Day.

The RNC, in turn, has transferred nearly $10 million to the party’s congressional campaign arms, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, according to Thursday’s filings. That doesn’t include another $3.5 million it reportedly transferred to each committee this month.

By contrast, the Democratic National Committee, which has lagged significantly behind the RNC in fundraising, has transferred only $2.4 million to the party’s House campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, most of which came this month.

Donors rallied to support Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a vulnerable Democrat from North Dakota, after her politically fraught vote against the confirmation of Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court on Oct. 6.

During the first 17 days of the month, Heitkamp’s campaign raised $12.4 million — a huge sum for a Senate race in that time span, which nearly matched the $14.3 million she had raised since 2013.

The fundraising surge left her with more than $11 million in the bank for the final three weeks until Election Day — a sum that could be difficult to spend effectively, given North Dakota’s relatively inexpensive media market.

Her Republican opponent, Rep. Kevin Cramer, had less than $1 million in the bank after raising slightly more than $600,000 in the period covered in Thursday’s filings. But he is leading Heitkamp in most polls.

The online fundraising portal ActBlue, which allows liberal donors to direct contributions to campaigns across the country, says that it has processed more than $200 million in mostly small donations to candidates this month. That’s the biggest month on record for the 15-year-old website, and brings the total amount that it has processed for the cycle to more than $1.5 billion, it indicated in a post on Twitter on Thursday evening.

The four leading super PACs supporting each side’s respective congressional candidates raised $85 million in the first 2 1/2 weeks of the month, powered by seven- and eight-figure donations from some of the biggest donors in U.S. politics.

The biggest donor of the month was Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, who is considering running for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination. Bloomberg, a media tycoon whose animating issues include fighting climate change and gun violence, donated $43 million to super PACs supporting Democratic candidates so far this month, bringing his total for the midterm cycle to more than $61 million.

That still ranks him behind the cycle’s most prolific donors, Las Vegas casino tycoons Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, who are motivated largely by their hawkish views on Israel’s defense. They have donated more than $112 million to super PACs supporting Republican candidates.

Other major donors included Stephen A. Schwarzman, the Blackstone Group chief executive, whose regular phone conversations with Trump have made him a focus of Chinese efforts to influence the president. Schwarzman donated $4.5 million to the two main super PACs supporting Republican congressional candidates this month.

Political advertising funding that cannot be traced to its ultimate source appeared to pick up in the past few weeks. Transparency activists deplore this type of financing, which was legalized by the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in a case called Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

The most active group exclusively utilizing this type of funding this cycle is backing Democratic candidates — a change from past cycles when this technique was used more aggressively by Republicans. The group, Majority Forward, has spent more than $40 million attacking Republican candidates and helping Democratic ones, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

On the Republican side, the Senate Leadership Fund has received nearly $13 million from an affiliated nonprofit group called One Nation that does not disclose its donors, according to Thursday’s filings.

And the Congressional Leadership Fund had accepted more than $23 million from a linked nonprofit group called American Action Network that also does not disclose its donors.

The super PAC Priorities USA Action, which mostly funds digital advertising in support of Democratic candidates, engaged in a similar financing strategy, accepting $1.5 million — most of which came this month — from a nonprofit group created by some of the same people called Priorities USA.