The Great Political Money Gap
Such is the state of big-dollar political fund-raising, as last night's filings with the Federal Election Commission made clear. When it comes to attracting mega-donors, Republicans are crushing Democrats. That could mean a lot more ads for conservatives than for liberals in next year's midterm elections.
MAGA Inc., President Trump's super PAC, collected about $177 million in the first half of 2025, in large part from cryptocurrency interests eager to curry favor with Trump.
The corresponding group for Democrats, Future Forward, had a slightly different tie to crypto: It spent the last six months disbursing $3.4 million to what is known as the FTX Recovery Trust, repaying money it had accepted during the 2022 election cycle from crypto-exchange executives like Sam Bankman-Fried. (Last year, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of stealing billions of dollars from his customers.)
Future Forward's cash on hand as of June 30? $2,826.08.
At the same time, the Republican National Committee sits on over five times as much money as the Democratic National Committee does.
The disparity doesn't end there. Republicans are also doing better down ballot. The main House G.O.P. group, the Congressional Leadership Fund, has a $10.5 million cash advantage over the corresponding Democratic group. The main Senate G.O.P. group, the Senate Leadership Fund, has a $16 million advantage over that of Senate Democrats — and that doesn't include the Democratic group's staggering $21 million in debt it retains from last fall. (These figures do not include fund-raising from allied nonprofits.)
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