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Democrats dominate fundraising in key Senate races, but Republicans still have ample resources

Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico speaks during a “Talarico for Texas: Frontera Tour” campaign rally at the La Posada facility, July 14, 2026, in Laredo, Texas. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — Democrats raised more money than their Republican opponents in key Senate races across the country in the second quarter, according to campaign finance filings made this week to the Federal Election Commission. 

In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff raised almost ten times what Republican Rep. Mike Collins did. In Ohio, Democrat Sherrod Brown outraised Republican Sen. Jon Husted by roughly $10 million. In Texas, Democrat James Talarico outraised Republican Ken Paxton by over $26 million. 

Talarico’s haul marks a new record for second quarter fundraising, far surpassing other Democrats who previously pursued Senate seats in Texas.

At this point in Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 campaign, O’Rourke had raised a grand total of just under $24 million since the start of the election cycle. MJ Hegar had raised $6.6 million in 2020, and Colin Allred had raised over $38 million in 2024. All three of those Democratic candidates ultimately lost their general election fights.

Talarico has raised nearly $69 million this cycle, and the candidate still has over $21 million to spend. Lone Star Rising, a super PAC that supports Talarico, raised $12.7 million in the second quarter, most of it from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.

Talarico’s opponent, Paxton, who is currently serving as the state’s attorney general, raised $2.2 million in the second quarter and has around $1.8 million in the bank, according to filings.

Lone Star Liberty, a super PAC that supports Paxton, raised about $4.3 million. They have about $35,000 cash on hand.

Republican PACs remain well-stocked, and Elon Musk contributions grow

Still, there are reasons for Republicans to be optimistic as the general election approaches.

In some cases, Republicans still have more money saved. Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola outraised her opponent, Republican Dan Sullivan, by nearly $5 million. But Sullivan spent little (under $1 million) in the second quarter, and still has more than $8 million on hand, according to FEC filings. That puts him $1 million ahead of Peltola.

Republican super PACs and party committees are also well-resourced. The Senate Leadership Fund, a flagship Republican super PAC affiliated with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, outraised its Democratic equivalent, the Senate Majority PAC, by nearly $20 million. 

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) reported having a cash on hand lead of over $10 million on the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) when those groups filed their most recent monthly reports. The Republican National Committee (RNC) has over $125 million in the bank, while the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is in debt. 

MAGA Inc., a Donald Trump-affiliated super PAC, had over $382 million on hand when its most recent monthly report was filed. 

Among MAGA Inc.’s donors is Elon Musk, who has emerged as one of the Republican party’s top supporters this midterm cycle despite past spats with Trump. He has invested at least $90 million dollars, including a recent $5 million donation, to Vivek Ramaswamy’s super PAC, V-PAC. Ramaswamy is running for Ohio governor against Amy Acton. Musk also endorsed Ramaswamy, which comes after notable tension between the two when co-leading the Department of Government Efficiency. 

Musk’s own super PAC, America PAC, has kept a relatively low profile since last year, when Brad Schimel, Musk’s preferred candidate in a Wisconsin Supreme Court race, lost in a 10-point blowout. America PAC and other Musk-affiliated groups spent millions supporting Schimel. 

Democrats face internal struggles in Michigan and Maine 

Democrats also face challenges internally. In Michigan, two Democratic Senate candidates are still locked in a hard-fought primary, vying for the opportunity to challenge Republican Mike Rogers. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive candidate endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, raised $4.6 million, while Rogers raised under $3 million. Rep. Haley Stevens raised about $2.1 million, according to FEC filings. Rogers has more cash on hand, $5.7 million, than either of his potential Democratic opponents. 

In Maine, Democrat Graham Platner’s campaign raised over $9 million, while Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ campaign raised around $5.7 million. Collins has far more cash on hand however, $11 million compared to the Platner campaign’s $1.8 million.

Given that Platner dropped out of the race earlier this month in the wake of a sexual assault allegation, which he’s denied, it is still unknown if and how Democrats will access the Platner campaign’s war chest to benefit whoever his replacement turns out to be. Candidate-to-candidate transfers are limited to $2,000. 

ABC’s Gina Montagna contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

AI is making your life more expensive. Here’s how

By CNN
(CNN) — AI is raising prices for Americans – and not just electricity bills.Major technological innovations carry the potential to transform economies by creating opportunities, jobs and even new industries while supercharging productivity and growth.However, that promise of longer-term gains often is preceded by short- and medium-term pain.In the case of artificial intelligence, that has included job losses, slower wage growth, widening wealth inequity and, especially in recent months, higher inflation.Recent data shows that the gargantuan interest and investment in AI adoption (estimated to be around $750 billion for this year alone) have pushed a variety of prices higher, lifting overall inflation in the process.“The higher inflation means that households must spend just over $375 more to purchase the same goods and services as they did this time last year due to AI’s inflationary impact,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, wrote in an email to CNN.The good news: AI is still just a minor contributor (an estimated 0.2 percentage points) of overall inflation, and the impacts are currently limited to a handful of categories.But the not-so-good news: AI is pushing inflation higher and further compounding longstanding affordability concerns in the process. Plus, these price pressures aren’t expected to go away anytime soon, and they very well could broaden. That potential dynamic has Federal Reserve officials, including the central bank’s new chairman, on alert.Here’s a look at where AI has already shown up in inflation and where it could crop up next.ElectricityAI data centers can have voracious appetites for energy (notably electricity and water), and the rapid expansion of these monoliths threaten to strain grids and drive prices up further.That’s largely because demand is outrunning supply.Data center facilities can be built or expanded at double or triple the pace of new electricity generations systems needed to serve them, PJM Interconnection, America’s largest grid operator, noted recently.Combine those needs with retiring coal plants, increased electrification needs, extreme weather and aging infrastructure, and it further widens the gap between supply and demand.“Data centers are demanding huge amounts of power, and that’s tending to crowd out the electricity available to distribute to residents; it’s also led to wholesale electricity prices being bid up, because data centers are willing to pay the price that providers ask them for, and that ends up also raising the prices for residential electricity costs,” Pooja Sriram, US economist at Barclays, told CNN.US Consumer Price Index data shows that residential electricity prices rose about twice as fast in 2025 as compared to the average seen in years prior, she noted.And through the first five months of this year, electricity prices were climbing even faster than in 2025, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.“I think that is one of the clearest imprints of AI data center demand driving up residential electricity costs,” she said.Electricity prices unexpectedly fell 1% in June but continue to outpace overall inflation and are up 4% from a year ago, the latest CPI data shows.Memory chipsThe data centers’ appetites, however, aren’t fully sated with power alone. The massive buildouts also led to a surge in demand for memory chips, which has benefited manufacturers handsomely, Sriram said.“The issue is not just the demand; the issue is the supply side for those memory chips has been very constrained,” she said.The trillions of dollars chasing AI-related components now have storage and memory suppliers prioritizing their wafer-manufacturing capabilities toward high-bandwidth and high-speed (and highly profitable) memory products commanded by data centers, she said.“What that does has basically diverted (the production of) the memory chips that you need for consumer products toward very specific high-performance memory chips that the data centers need,” she said.The pricing pressures of these and other components have been most evident at the producer level. The Producer Price Index chart semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing industry looks like a hockey stick.As of June, that category’s wholesale prices were up 26% from a year ago – a stark shift from June 2025 when prices were falling 0.8% on an annual basis, PPI data shows.“Why this matters for the end consumer is, at the end of the day, our laptops, computers, iPhones, iPads all have some sort of memory chip embedded in that hardware, and those chips have become quite expensive,” she said.Computer hardware and softwareLate last month, Apple hiked the prices for some of its most popular products by roughly 20%. In a statement, the company noted that AI data centers created an “extraordinary surge” in demand for memory and storage.Sony upped the price of its PlayStation console earlier this year, and Microsoft last month raised the price of its Xbox consoles by about 25% for similar reasons.“The entire consumer electronics industry is struggling with the current components crisis, but the effects are particularly hard on consoles,” Microsoft wrote in a statement.Computers and related hardware have typically been a highly deflationary product category in the CPI: Because of technological advancements, consumers can get more bang for their buck. (For example, a $1,500 computer in 2025 was likely more powerful than a $1,500 year-ago model, and as such, the BLS treats this as a price drop)For the first half of 2026, however, computers and related products have experienced price inflation, BLS data shows.“We’re in the early innings of these consumer price pressures and the pass-through from higher producer prices, higher import prices and greater demand, especially for AI-led investment,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon.Adding AI features in business applications also affects the price of software. For example, Microsoft raised personal Office 365 prices by 43% in February (30% for a family plan) after keeping them steady for a decade. The new feature: Copilot, Microsoft’s new AI tool.Construction costs, wagesData centers also are impacting the supply of other key construction inputs such as copper and electrical wiring, as well as workers.“If you’re looking for data that was conclusive (about AI’s effect on the economy and inflation), albeit a bit more subtle, you would look and see whether wages in construction were going up more than wages in the rest of the economy,” said Thierry Wizman, Global FX and rates strategist at Macquarie Group.“Because if in fact there is upward pressure, straining resources of the economy because of the AI data center buildout, you would see it in wages as well – specifically in the wages of labor that would be working these projects,” he added.So far, the available national-level wage data is showing a “robust divergence” between the construction sector and the aggregate, he noted.Regional data could prove even more telling, he said, noting the importance of tracking construction wages in areas with a high concentration of data centers. (That will take more patience, however, as that more localized data is lagged due to collection and modeling needs).“We’re having a problem with housing in the country these days; people talk about it as being unaffordable,” Wizman said. “It could be the case that the fact wages in construction have been rising a lot is putting upward pressure on houses as well.”The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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