Get the latest on the midterms & more in the NPR AppIn key U.S.Senate races this year, candidates are soliciting donations from outside of their home states, and their out-of-state messaging is different from what they're running locally.An NPR analysis of Google Ads for four major Senate races — Iowa, Georgia, Ohio and Texas — found that the Democratic and Republican candidates spent more than $15 million on advertising related to fundraising in the 2025-26 election cycle.
About three quarters of that went to ads that ran nationally.Loading...
Often, these ads focus on national talking points — such as attacking or defending President Trump, or turning the Senate blue or red — rather than local issues.For candidates like Georgia Sen.
Jon Ossoff and Iowa Democratic nominee Josh Turek, more than 80% of their itemized individual contributions have come from out of state.Loading...
The funneling of funds has affected at least four of the competitive Senate races, where a majority of the money is coming from outside the state.ActBlue and WinRed, two major grassroots fundraising platforms, are a major catalyst for out-of-state fundraising.Because this technology is inexpensive to run, it incentivizes candidates to rely on digital ads, according to Zachary Albert, a professor of politics at Brandeis University."ActBlue and WinRed really reduced the transaction costs for contributing," Albert said.
"Even if you're only yielding like a $5 or $10 contribution from someone like the costs of soliciting that are so much lower than they used to be, that it makes it worthwhile."With both parties — and each candidate — now having fundraising platforms, political hopefuls increasingly need to stand out from the crowd and are often shifting their messaging to a broader audience, which can result in using polarizing messaging to solicit funds.For in-state and out-of-state ads, candidates tend to have two different sets of talking points, according to Wesleyan M...