Internal Frustration With Republicans’ Senate Committee Is Spiking, With Close Races on the Line

Some Republicans are confused by the NRSC’s spending and fundraising tactics this year, and they’re worried that may cost them in tight contests.

Trump arrives to speak with reporters at the NRSC.

Donald Trump speaks with GOP senators at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Thursday in June. Evan Vucci/AP

The Senate GOP’s political arm says that, thanks in part to a novel new spending strategy, it has funded a massive ad campaign that has brought Republicans to the brink of winning a majority.

But some Senate Republicans say that is drastically overstating what the National Republican Senatorial Committee has actually done.

GOP strategists told NOTUS that the party’s nominees in major Senate races have had to do more fundraising themselves on behalf of the NRSC than in the past but haven’t benefited from a corresponding level of financial support from the committee itself. The arrangement has left strategists baffled over the process and worried that the party could have spent more in marquee contests like the ones in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.