Polls tell you what voters say. Money tells you what the people who run campaigns believe.
Super PACs and party committees have their own pollsters, their own data, and very little patience. When they think a race can be won, they pour money in. When they decide it's gone, they cancel the TV time and move on. So we built a new chart for the forecast that puts those two things side by side: how close each Senate race is, and which way its money is moving.
Chart 1: Where the money is heading
Each dot is a Senate race.
Across is how close the polls are. The farther right, the closer the race.
Up and down is what we call money momentum: outside spending in the last two weeks minus the two weeks before. If groups announced they're canceling TV time, we subtract that too, because canceled ads never show up in FEC filings.
Bigger dots have drawn more outside money overall.
That splits the races into four corners.
Battlegrounds (top right): close, and the money is speeding up.
Long shots getting money (top left): not close, but money is still coming in.
Going quiet (bottom right): close, but the money is slowing.
Written off (bottom left): not close, and money is leaving.
Two things jump out.
Every close race has money speeding up. Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Maine, Kansas, Nebraska and Alaska are all in the top-right corner. Texas alone saw $106 million in outside spending in the last two weeks, up from $41 million the two weeks before. Nobody is abandoning a close race. The "going quiet" corner is empty.
North Carolina is the one race that's been written off. Outside spending there fell from about $20 million to about $6 million in two weeks. On top of that, groups canceled about $24.5 million of October airtime. The Senate Leadership Fund, the main Republican Senate super PAC, paused its ads and canceled about $18 million. Old North Action cut $6.5 million. Our forecast gives Roy Cooper a 96% chance.
Chart 2: Which way it's moving
This is the same chart with one change: every dot is the same size, and each race has a tail. The tail starts where the race sat three weeks ago, on Sept. 19, and ends at today's dot.
North Carolina has the longest fall: from money speeding up (about +$12 million) to money leaving (−$38 million).
South Carolina is the surprise. Three weeks ago it was almost 6 points apart with no new money. Now the polls are within 4 points, and outside spending is up about 11 times, from $0.6 million to $6.5 million in two weeks. That's small money next to Texas, but it moved the race into the battleground corner. Our forecast still gives Graham an 83% chance.
Iowa and Kansas are heating up. Iowa's money momentum went from about +$7 million to +$18 million.
New Hampshire is cooling: from +$14 million to under +$4 million, while Chris Pappas's lead grew to about 5 points.
We draw the tail straight from three weeks ago to today on purpose. Big TV buys tend to land in the FEC filings all at once, so the week-by-week path zigzags. Texas swings from +$67 million to −$54 million and back, mostly because Texas PAC reported about $54 million on a single day, Sept. 12.
Chart 3: Who's paying in the battlegrounds
This one zooms in on the battleground races and asks a sharper question: whose side is the new money helping?
Blue bars, to the left, are money helping the Democrat. Red bars, to the right, help the Republican. The solid part of each bar is the party's own money: the party committees (NRSC, DSCC) and their leadership super PACs (the Senate Leadership Fund, Senate Majority PAC and MAGA Inc.). The lighter part is everyone else.
BIG interpretation below for paid subscribers.
