The main super PAC supporting Republican House candidates said on Thursday that it had raised about $94 million from July through September, far more than in any previous summer quarter as the party strains to defend the House of Representatives.
The haul by the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is aligned with Speaker Mike Johnson, was powered in part by donations of $20 million each from the megadonors Elon Musk and Timothy Mellon this summer, The New York Times has previously reported. Full details about the super PAC’s finances are set to be made public in federal filings on Thursday evening, but the group shared some figures with The Times.
For the first 18 months of the midterm cycle, the Republican super PAC out-raised its Democratic rival group, which is aligned with Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader. Republican outside groups have generally held the upper hand this election, an advantage that the party is counting on to help it overcome a challenging political and economic environment.
But it now appears that the top groups backing House Democrats have gained a financial edge over their Republican counterparts, at least if you include both sides’ allied nonprofit groups — dark-money organizations that are not required to disclose their donors.
The main House Democratic super PAC, House Majority PAC, has said that it and its allied nonprofit group had raised $514 million from the start of the midterm cycle through Sept. 30. The House Republican super PAC told The Times that it and its allied nonprofit group had raised $370 million through Oct. 14.
(House Majority PAC has not released a third-quarter fund-raising figure that is directly comparable with that shared by the Congressional Leadership Fund, saying only that the Democratic group and its nonprofit had combined to raise $230 million during the quarter.)
“We’ve raised more than we’ve ever raised before,” Chris Winkelman, the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, said in an interview. “We’re going to deploy more into the battlefield than we’ve ever deployed before. And I think that’s absolutely necessary in an environment like this.”
He added, “When you’re facing an environment like this, you have to be very well funded to sustain some of the blows you’re going to take.”
Democrats need to flip just a few seats to win control of the chamber. Mr. Winkelman said that he had been “candid” with donors about the challenge ahead of them when pitching them for money, and that it had not hurt fund-raising.
“They care about what this country looks like,” he said. “They know that we are going to be efficient. And throughout the cycle, I’ve found it best to just be honest with them, tell them what’s in front of us, and that we can get it done. But it’s tough.”
Mr. Winkelman’s super PAC said that about $260 million of the $370 million of the overall fund-raising total had been raised by the super PAC itself, and the other $110 million was raised by the nonprofit. The super PAC said it had entered October with about $155 million on hand.
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