With a month left before the midterms, the committee in charge of electing Democrats to the Senate went to a bank and borrowed $15 million.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee drew the loan from Amalgamated Bank on October 5, according to its latest FEC filing. It carries 6 percent interest and isn't due until June 30, 2028.
To get it, the DSCC put up its current and future assets as collateral. That puts money the committee hasn't raised yet on the line. Since the loan doesn't come due until mid-2028, donors who give to Senate Democrats over the next year and a half could end up paying for races being decided this November.
Then there's what happened after the money came in. In the first two weeks of October, the DSCC took in about $28 million, and that figure includes the $15 million loan. It spent about $32.3 million. So even with $15 million in borrowed money, Senate Democrats spent $4.3 million more than they brought in.
Their cash on hand fell from about $24.9 million to $20.7 million in two weeks. All $15 million of the debt is still on the books.
The Senate committee isn't the only Democratic operation borrowing to stay afloat. The Democratic National Committee took out its own $15 million line of credit, the largest it has ever taken for an off-year election, with room to borrow $5 million more. As of June 30, the DNC had $18.5 million in debt and $16.3 million in cash.
On the same date, the Republican National Committee had $128.5 million in cash and no debt.
The gap is just as wide across both parties' operations. By the end of June, Trump, the Republican Party, and their allied super PACs had raised $1.1 billion. The Democrats' equivalent committees had $355 million.
The money on the right side of the ledger keeps coming. While the DSCC was borrowing, Elon Musk was writing checks. He gave America PAC $12.6 million on October 6, $19 million on October 8, and $43.2 million on October 14. Counting another $1.98 million in in-kind support, that's $76.8 million in two weeks.
America PAC spent $42.7 million in the same period, including $27.6 million on ads and other spending to help Republican candidates. It still finished with $46.5 million in the bank and no debt.
That came on top of September, when Musk gave $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC working to protect the GOP's Senate majority. His known political giving this cycle has passed $440 million.
Democrats already have their response ready. Bernie Sanders has been posting about Musk's spending, and the party will call it billionaire money buying elections. That would carry more weight if Democrats hadn't spent years raking in money from billionaires like George Soros and Reid Hoffman, and if their own committees weren't taking out bank loans because their donors aren't keeping up.
Election Day is November 3. America PAC has $46.5 million in the bank and owes nothing. The DSCC's $15 million loan comes due in June 2028.