Dem
50
GOP
50
In the money race, the two presidential candidates are headed in different directions. Kamala Harris has passed $1 billion in receipts since entering the race. That's a staggering amount, but even more so since she only got started 2 months ago. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's small-donor (less than $200) donations are way down. They made up half his donors in 2020, and now they're down to less than a third. That's a big problem, because people who haven't hit the cap ($3,300 in the primaries, another $3,300 in the general) can be hit up again. People who donate big, and so reach the limit, cannot. Trump's fundraising struggles have also trickled down to other Republican candidates.
Looking to make up (some of) the difference, the clever folks who run the Republican Party cooked up a bit of a loophole. It's a little weedy, but the simple version goes like this: Political campaigns get much cheaper ad rates than PACs and other political committees. However, PACs and other political committees have fewer limits on the amount of money they can raise. So, maybe if a PAC runs an ad for a candidate (Trump, or downballot), and then slaps a "donate to [X] PAC" at the very end, it becomes a joint effort, eligible for candidate rates, but paid for by the deeper-pocketed PAC/political committee.
It wasn't necessarily clear this was kosher, and a fair reading of the rules says it's surely not. However, the GOP decided to roll the dice and see what happened. The Democrats promptly complained to the FEC, and yesterday the FEC said... nothing. Well, technically, three FEC commissioners (the Democratic appointees) said "this is no good" and the other three commissioners (the Republican appointees) said "this works for us." With the vote tied 3-3, the FEC officially has no opinion, and the Republicans can keep exploiting the loophole.
The Democrats, of course, are also going to start exploiting the loophole. They made very clear they are not going to go through the balance of the election with one hand tied behind their backs. However, most ad inventory has been claimed by now, and besides, the Democrats (and especially Harris) have fewer money problems than the Republicans do. So, the GOP is still going to benefit more from this particular political parlor trick. (Z)