Thread by @blockedfreq

Friday night's tweet chain has to do with one of ET's favorite topics - campaign finance, especially with the #GA runoff on the horizon. Some of you may recall the Citizens United v. FEC decision in 2010. Well, it's now backfiring badly on the GOP. Why, you may ask? (1/x)

Although the GOP has been able to raise obscene sums of money and funnel them into their super PACs courtesy of Citizens United, Dems have caught up in a big way in large part due to shifting demographics. Money talks and the way it flows has changed since 2010. (2/x)

Now that Dems rely far more on suburban voters, the latter's disposable incomes funnel individual campaigns rather than how the GOP does it with their super PACs. Some GOP candidates are great individual fundraisers, but not enough of them do so on the level of Dems. (3/x)

We see this with Fetterman, Warnock, Kelly, etc. who raised eye-popping sums on levels that their opposition couldn't possibly match. Oz had to rely on his personal fortune, Masters, Bolduc, etc on super PACs. This paves the way for a bigger problem. (4/x)

When it comes to airing ads and getting good rates for them, candidates pay far less than super PACs. For example, let's say Warnock pays $5 million for an ad blitz. By comparison, it may take McConnell's super PAC $10 million to match Warnock's level. (5/x)

And this is where Dems' individual dollar fundraising advantage comes in. Simply put, they can afford far more for their dollar than the GOP can. It takes the GOP significant effort to keep up with their PACs, burning a lot more money in the process. (6/x)

And what do GOP super PACs rely on? High-dollar donors like millionaires and billionaires and not much else. A lot of their base is now geared toward people with little disposable income. This partially explains why GOP Senate candidates are so shitty at fundraising. (7/x)

At least when it comes to individual campaign contributions, that is. It now becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where, as a consequence of Citizens United, the GOP is now being beaten over the head with the consequences of their actions. (8/x)

So, in a roundabout way like a lot of other choices they've made (many of which are too long to list), the GOP is finding themselves at the end of a long-term arc that results in them at a disadvantage. Their unleashing of dark money backfired as Dem demographics jump in. (End)