On Saturday the National Republican Congressional Committee announced some serious money going into campaign ads. These ad buys are being done with some tactical acumen, being placed to air in 22 Congressional districts that are seen as must-wins - 13 of which are held currently by Democrats. The NRCC will be dumping over $45 million into these districts.

The buy spans 29 media markets, with the majority of the NRCC’s investment placed on offensive flip opportunities. By comparison, 86% of the DCCC’s recently announced ad reservations were to protect their highly vulnerable Democrat incumbents.

“The NRCC committed from Day One to not just hold our majority, but go on offense to grow our majority – today we are putting our money where our mouth is,” said NRCC Chairman Richard Hudson. “This initial investment gives our candidates firepower to remind voters of the Biden border, crime, and inflation crises wreaking havoc on their daily lives. Extreme Democrats who enabled the chaos and malaise should polish up their resumes – they will be unemployed soon.”

That's a significant amount of money, and it's just the first salvo. Expect more such targeted advertising as the election grows closer.

In 2020, President Donald Trump won five congressional districts that are today held by Democrats, those being Alaska's at-large seat, currently held by Mary Peltola, Maine's Second District, held by Jared Golden, Ohio's Ninth District, held by Marcy Kaptur, Pennsylvania's Eighth District, held by Matt Cartwright, and Washington's Third District, held by Marie Perez.

The campaigns will also include digital and Spanish-language ads in addition to the traditional media markets and are aimed at now just holding the Republican House majority but expanding it. Focusing on these districts - most especially the ones that voted for Donald Trump in 2020 but are now represented by Democrats - is key. There is one question, of course, the answer for which the NRCC cannot provide: How long will the Trump/Vance candidacy's coattails be? That, more than any amount of spending, may make the difference in the makeup of the House and Senate in January 2025.

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Back to the NRCC's efforts: These ads are, as I noted above, being placed tactically; here in Alaska, for example, the NRCC is putting over a million in targeted ads into the Anchorage media market, along with $880,000 in Fairbanks and $84,000 in Juneau - in other words, the state's major population centers. One such ad is already airing here in the Great Land, where we are hoping to send Democrat Mary Peltola back to her home in Bethel. Note the heavy leavening of obvious military veterans in the ad; that's appropriate for Alaska, as we have the largest per-capita proportion of military veterans of any state in the republic.

Some thought went into this.

We've all focused a lot on the presidential elections, and that's justified; it's the big chair, it's high-profile, and it's the exception to the "all politics are local" rule. But unless the GOP can expand their current razor-thin margin in the House of Representatives and also gain a majority in the Senate, the best efforts of a possible (probable) second Trump administration will be stymied.