Outside groups reported $383 million in large independent expenditures in first nine days of final stretch

By Teresa Valdane

WASHINGTON — Super PACs and other outside groups reported spending $382.9 million on independent expenditures of $100,000 or more in federal races from Oct. 15 through Oct. 23, the first nine days of the final-stretch reporting window, according to an Inquisitor analysis of Federal Election Commission data.

Nearly two-thirds of that money, $241.5 million, went into Senate contests, and more than half of the Senate total was concentrated in three states: Texas, Ohio and Michigan. Spending that supported Democratic candidates or opposed Republicans totaled $207.0 million; spending that supported Republicans or opposed Democrats totaled $153.7 million. The remaining $22.2 million involved independent, Libertarian and other candidates, or reports that did not list a party.

The figures come from 24-hour reports that FEC rules require once an election is less than 20 days away. From then until the day before the election, a committee must report within a day any independent expenditures aggregating $1,000 or more in a given race. The general election is Nov. 3.

How the Inquisitor counted

The analysis uses the FEC’s processed Schedule E data for the 2026 cycle, as of early Saturday, limited to individual line items of $100,000 or more with expenditure dates from Oct. 15 to Oct. 23. That filter returned 683 entries; after removing superseded versions of amended entries, 669 items from 152 committees remained. Smaller expenditures, which add up to tens of millions of dollars more, are not included, and items dated Oct. 22 and Oct. 23 are thin because the FEC had not finished processing recent filings. The amounts are as reported by the committees, and many are large media buys that will air over several days. Party labels are the FEC’s; candidates’ names are standardized here because filers spell them differently. Some committees itemized the same amounts twice, once as supporting one candidate and once as opposing another; those entries are counted as filed. The largest instance is Alaska Values PAC, which listed four items totaling $1.35 million both as supporting Gerald Heikes and as opposing Sen. Dan Sullivan.

“Pro-Democratic” in the tables below means spending reported as supporting a Democrat or opposing a Republican; “pro-Republican” means the reverse. Those labels describe the direction of the spending, not the political identity of the committee.

The Senate map

Texas led all races. Of the $72.8 million reported there, $57.7 million — about 79 percent — opposed Democrat James Talarico or supported Republican Ken Paxton. The single largest item in the data set was a $21.6 million media buy opposing Talarico, reported by Texas PAC with an Oct. 20 date and paid to Flexpoint Media; the same committee reported a separate $10.7 million digital buy against him the same day. MAGA Inc., the super PAC supporting President Trump, reported a $7.2 million connected-TV and digital buy opposing Talarico on Oct. 21, and America PAC reported $5 million in digital media against him on Oct. 20. On the other side, a committee called Texas Forever reported a $5 million digital buy opposing Paxton.

Ohio was second, with $49.9 million. WinSenate reported a $9.9 million media buy and a $6.8 million digital buy opposing Republican Sen. Jon Husted, both dated Oct. 20, while Defend American Jobs reported a $6.8 million buy opposing former Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic nominee, dated Oct. 19.

In Michigan, where the seat is open, more of the outside money opposed Democrat Abdul El-Sayed ($15.9 million) than went to any other single purpose in the race. In Maine, spending against Sen. Susan Collins and against Democrat Troy Jackson, was nearly even. In Alaska, groups reported $6.2 million opposing Sen. Dan Sullivan and $1.3 million supporting Gerald Heikes, a Republican who received 1.1 percent of the vote in the August primary, according to a Justice Department complaint filed this week. Most of the Heikes spending came from Alaska Values PAC, which listed the same amounts as opposing Sullivan.

The House battleground

House races drew $141.4 million in large expenditures over the same period, and the direction of that money was more lopsided than in the Senate: $95.3 million supported Democrats or opposed Republicans, against $36.5 million that supported Republicans or opposed Democrats. The biggest single spender in the entire data set was HMP, which reported $59.3 million across 91 items, nearly all of it opposing Republican House candidates. The largest committee on the other side of House races was Safety & Affordability PAC Inc., with $16.7 million, all of it opposing Democrats.

The 10 districts above account for $46.9 million, about a third of large House spending in the period. In Montana’s 1st District, nearly all of the $4.0 million opposed Republican Aaron Flint.

The biggest spenders

The 12 committees in the table account for $232.4 million, or 61 percent of the total. On the Republican-aligned side, spending was spread across a larger number of groups, including Texas PAC, America PAC, SLF PAC, Americans for Prosperity Action and MAGA Inc. On the Democratic-aligned side, HMP and WinSenate together reported $106.1 million, more than half of all pro-Democratic spending in the data.

The calendar

More than half of the nine-day total — $208.3 million — carried an Oct. 20 date, reflecting large media buys placed at the start of the final two weeks. Because committees report the date an ad is first disseminated, a single buy can cover advertising that runs through Election Day.

What the numbers do and do not show

Independent expenditures are made without coordination with candidates, and the 24-hour reports disclose who spent the money, on which candidate and for what purpose, such as television, digital or mail. They do not show the donors behind the committees; that information appears on the committees’ regular reports, the next of which, the pre-general report, covered activity through Oct. 14. The data also exclude spending by groups that do not file Schedule E, such as issue advertising that does not expressly advocate for or against a candidate.

The Inquisitor will update this analysis as the FEC processes additional reports through Nov. 2.

The Inquisitor sent the Federal Election Commission, OpenSecrets, Issue One, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee questions about the data and the reporting rules on Saturday. None had responded by publication. This story will be updated with any response.

Photo: A voting booth. Kenneth C. Zirkel / Wikimedia Commons, CC0.