Thread by @lukerosiak

Is it true that McConnell tanked Senate races by not funding candidates like Masters?

McConnell spent HUGE everywhere but AZ. Masters had Thiel so his outside spending was pretty good at $53M vs $57M for his opponent. But he got only 46% of the vote.

dailywire.com/news/is-it-tru…

Some were rankled by McConnell spending $6M in an R-vs-R race in AK, which they imagine could have gone to AZ

But that's a negligible amount in the context of AZ spending & there's no reason it would have gone to AZ instead of NV, where the race was closer+the funding gap bigger

The $6M is nothing in the context of McConnell's $230M in total spending, which vastly beat out its Democrat counterpart. McConnell spent in every state that Trump did except AZ. Real issue is PA became a massive money-suck because of Oz being unpopular minus Trump's endorsement.

After getting candidates through primaries with his endorsement, Trump largely abandoned them in terms of super PAC spending. For example, McConnell's PAC spent $53M on Oz, whereas Trump's PAC spent $3M. Similar for the other races.

To the extent $6M from McConnell could have affected a 6-point loss by Masters, there are bigger financial factors at play. Masters' campaign was the worst among Trump endorsees in terms of raising their own funds. Theil backed out of a $10M investment.

But primarily, there's Trump. Trump has $70M in political funds in the bank. He could have made it so Masters had double the super PAC spending of his opponent

Instead, he created a "joint fundraiser" with Masters that actually gave $99 to Trump for every $1 that went to Masters

Many Masters supporters who used this option (unaware that 99% went to Trump because that was hidden unless you hit a toggle) may have refrained from donating directly to Masters because they were under the belief that they'd already done their part.