AxIndex, Edition 20

SNAPSHOT

National Sentiment Tracking

Trump's War Chest Hits the Battlefield

Trump's political operation is finally tapping a war chest that stood at $415 million in late August. MAGA Inc. has put $25 million behind Ken Paxton in Texas, while the affiliated No Going Back PAC has spent nearly $23 million in Ohio, $17.5 million in Michigan and roughly $10 million in North Carolina. The same group has also gone on offense in Democratic-held House seats, including more than $7 million in Florida's 25th District.

The money cements a structural advantage Republicans have not had in recent cycles: AdImpact reports the GOP leads Senate battleground spending by nearly $190 million, its first edge at this stage since at least 2020. Still, some of the dollars are landing in districts that should be safe, such as Texas's redrawn 9th, which some Republicans read as a sign of a shifting map. As one GOP operative put it, a bad November would trace to voters' frustration over costs, not a shortage of resources. Money can buy airtime; it cannot reset the economic mood. Read More.

Kansas has emerged as an unexpected Senate battleground, with Republican Sen. Roger Marshall facing a competitive challenge from Democrat Adam Hamilton, a first-time candidate and pastor of the nation's largest United Methodist church. Recent polling is mixed: Emerson College showed Hamilton ahead 45 to 43 percent, while a co/efficient survey had Marshall up 49 to 44 percent. The Senate Leadership Fund responded last week with a multimillion-dollar ad campaign for Marshall, pausing further spending in North Carolina to do it.

Still, Republicans hold the stronger hand. Marshall retains a sizable cash advantage and has reserved roughly four times as much advertising as Hamilton, and Kansas has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. Marshall won his first race by more than 11 points in 2020, and NRSC Chair Tim Scott says he expects Marshall to win, though by a narrower margin than he would like. Hamilton's crossover appeal in deep-red communities now faces its stiffest test as late Republican money floods the state. Read More.

John E. Sununu is running for Senate as the Republican who can say no to Trump, and the GOP is spending like its majority depends on him. The former senator, seeking the seat held by retiring Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, trails Rep. Chris Pappas narrowly, but Republicans have outspent Democrats $39 million to $23 million this year and hold the edge in fall reservations. Democrats, who need a net gain of four seats, cannot afford to lose a seat they have long counted as theirs.

Sununu's pitch is distance with an endorsement attached. He says he has never met Trump, calls the president's $5,000 payment pledge economically senseless and faults the Iran war for lacking a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, all while carrying Trump's backing. He even stands by most of a 2024 op-ed labeling Trump a loser. Democrats paint him as a lobbyist and future rubber stamp. If New Hampshire swing voters buy the independent brand, Sununu could turn a blue seat into the GOP's firewall. Read More.

With absentee voting already underway, the Missouri Republican Party is only now assembling campaigns on two measures it spent months trying to keep off the ballot. The State Committee voted to back Proposition A, a referendum on the 2025 congressional map designed to elect seven Republicans, and to oppose Amendment 6, which would require 80 percent legislative approval to send changes to voter-passed initiatives back to the ballot. The groundwork is thin: the pro-map committee has bought no airtime and raised under $20,000 since June 30, while union-backed Yes on Amendment 6 has raised $2.7 million and is already on the air.

The larger concern for Republicans is turnout. With only the auditor's race on the statewide ballot, the measures will likely drive who shows up, and the August electorate that rejected two GOP-backed measures skewed unusually Democratic and independent. Republicans hold two-thirds supermajorities in both chambers, and party leaders believe Democrats see Amendment 6 as a tool to chip away at them. Defending those majorities may matter more to the GOP than winning either measure. Read More.

Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany raised more than $26 million in his bid for Wisconsin governor between mid-August and mid-September, with more than $24 million via transfers from the state Republican Party. Most of that money traces to three donors: Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, who each gave $11 million to the party, and ABC Supply co-founder Diane Hendricks. The infusion helped Tiffany outraise Democrat David Crowley by more than 2-to-1, and the state GOP has raised three times what it brought in during the 2022 governor's race.

The cash positions Tiffany to dominate the airwaves in the final weeks of the first open governor's race in 16 years. A Marquette Law School poll shows a statistical tie, with Crowley at 46 percent and Tiffany at 45 percent. Crowley has made the billionaire support a central attack line, though Democrats relied on the same party-transfer rules to outraise Republicans in past cycles. In a state where the last two governor's races were decided by 1.1 and 3.4 points, Tiffany's financial edge could prove decisive. Read More.

Democrats in competitive races are increasingly declaring themselves proud capitalists as Republicans cast the party as bent on socialism. Sixty Democratic candidates, including 10 sitting members of Congress, have signed a pledge from Promise to America, a group moderate Democrats formed in June after a string of DSA primary wins, declaring "we are capitalist, not socialist." Strategist Doug Schoen called it the first time in his 50 years in politics that Democrats have had to affirm support for capitalism.

The GOP message appears to be landing. In Arizona, an NRCC mailer tied moderate Amish Shah to a 2019 event co-hosted by a DSA chapter, forcing the DCCC to run an ad defending him. In South Florida, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar is framing her race as a choice against "a socialist," a label her opponent concedes many Cuban Americans hear as "communist." Still, Democrats lead the generic ballot 43 to 35 percent in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll. Republicans are hoping the label can move enough swing voters to narrow that gap. Read More.

Election betting has grown into a force campaigns can no longer ignore, with more than $750 million traded on 2026 races across Kalshi and Polymarket, according to a CNN analysis. Operatives say candidates and donors now track their odds closely, sometimes hourly, and some campaigns have had to talk donors out of reacting to market swings. The platforms also carry risk: Kalshi has fined several candidates for betting on their own races, and Los Angeles officials had to counter rigging claims that cited the markets after the mayoral primary.

The record so far argues for caution in reading the odds. Many battleground House markets have drawn less than $100,000 in trades, and heavy favorites have stumbled, including a Wisconsin Democratic primary frontrunner priced near 95 percent who lost to David Crowley. With Kalshi's election-night "projections" based on trader odds rather than official results, officials fear the markets could seed doubts about legitimate outcomes in close races. For candidates trailing in the markets, thin trading and volatile prices leave plenty of room for an upset. Read More.