How the Supreme Court’s campaign finance ruling gives Republicans a major midterm boost

By Fredreka Schouten, John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — In erasing limits on how much political parties can coordinate with federal candidates, the US Supreme Court on Tuesday handed Republicans a major political victory just ahead of this fall’s midterm elections.

The 6-3 decision by the high court rolled back a longstanding restriction on the use of party funds to directly benefit candidates and is expected to inject more money into political advertising in the coming weeks and months.

Republicans stand to immediately benefit from the ruling, which stemmed from a case initially filed by then-Senate candidate JD Vance and other Republicans. GOP-aligned committees have massive war chests they can unleash to boost their favored candidates as they work to counter Democratic candidates’ fundraising edge with small-dollar donors.

The Republican National Committee, for instance, entered June with more than $125 million in available cash and no unpaid bills. By contrast, the Democratic National Committee had a negative balance, with nearly $15 million remaining in its coffers but more than $18 million in debt.

“The DNC is in an atrocious fundraising position,” Sean Cooksey, a former Federal Election Commission chairman who previously served as Vance’s chief legal adviser in the White House, told CNN. In a social media post earlier this month, Cooksey predicted a favorable ruling would leave Republicans “with nuclear weapons” and the DNC with “one of those Wile E. Coyote guns with a flag that says Bang!”

The most immediate effect likely will be seen in advertising by allowing party committees to take advantage of the lower ad rates that candidates have long received, spreading political dollars further.

In recent cycles, individual Democratic candidates in key races for Congress typically have outraised Republicans, powered by grassroots donations. Deep-pocketed super PACs have helped boost Republicans, but they cannot coordinate their spending decisions with their favored candidates and must pay higher, commercial ad rates.

In a joint statement, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, who respectively oversee the Republican Senate and House campaign committees, hailed the ruling.

“By striking down these unconstitutional caps on coordinated spending, the court has restored core political speech and ensured parties can compete on a level playing field,” they said. “We are ready to fully support our candidates and put them in the strongest possible position to win in 2026 and beyond.”

In a memo sent to supporters following Tuesday’s ruling, the National Republican Senatorial Committee urged candidates to now lean on the party to “absorb costs” for key campaign functions such as polling and some television and radio advertising and direct mail.

Democrats cast the ruling as one that will help unfairly prop up Republican contenders.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, joined by New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Washington Rep. Suzan DelBene — who respectively oversee the Senate and House campaign committees for Democrats — called the decision a “win for billionaire donors and special interests who want more influence over the GOP agenda and an invitation for corruption.”

Why the ruling matters

There’s an enormous financial benefit to using candidate dollars on advertising rather than relying on money from outside groups such as super PACs.

In August 2024, for instance, a super PAC backing President Donald Trump’s campaign spent $3,500 to air a 30-second spot during the local news with a Lansing, Michigan, channel, according to invoices filed with the Federal Communications Commission. But in late October —just days before the November general election — the Trump campaign paid a fraction of that – $350 – to air its 30-second commercial in that time slot on that station, underscoring the financial advantage candidates enjoy.

Earlier this year, the FCC, now overseen by Trump-appointed chairman Brendan Carr, issued guidance saying that candidate-party coordinated ads would qualify for the lowest-unit charges offered by stations.

Several Democrats, including several in high-profile US Senate races, are seeking to challenge that guidance in court.

North Carolina Democrat Roy Cooper, one of the Senate candidates challenging the FCC’s guidance, said in a statement that the court had given “megadonors, billionaires and shady corporate money the power to drown out the voices of millions of voters and small dollar donors.”

In a Substack post Tuesday, Jeff Allen, who is managing Cooper’s campaign in North Carolina, warned of a new flood of money to benefit the Republican nominee in the race, former RNC chairman Michael Whatley.

“This race was already expected to be the first billion-dollar Senate race in history,” he wrote. “Today, the Supreme Court basically guaranteed it.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote the opinion for a 6-3 conservative court, insisted that Tuesday’s ruling “treats all political parties equally.”

“It will allow all political parties — including the DNC and RNC and the respective Senate and House campaign committees, as well as other parties and party committees — to participate more freely and compete more fully in the political process, and to coordinate more closely with their candidates,” he wrote.

A conservative court rolls back campaign finance regulations

Since the 1970s, political party committees, such as the fundraising arm of Senate Republicans, have been capped at how much money they may spend in coordination with a campaign. That has pushed a flood of campaign money toward super PACs, which have no spending limits but are unable to run their advertising and other messages past the candidate they want to help.

In 2022, Vance and several party committees — including the National Republican Senatorial Committee — challenged the law as a violation of the First Amendment. From the beginning, they appeared to have the upper hand at the 6-3 conservative court.

The Supreme Court majority has in recent years repeatedly invalidated campaign regulations. Several years ago, the court struck down a limit on campaigns’ ability to use post-election funds to repay loans made by candidates. In 2014, the court eliminated limits on how much donors could give to all candidates and parties in aggregate during a two-year period. Four years before that, the court handed down its decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which allowed corporations to spend unlimited sums in candidate elections.

Republicans argued that the caps on coordinated party spending were hopelessly out of step with the court’s modern approach to campaign finance law. And they asserted in briefing that the law “harmed our political system by leading donors to send their funds elsewhere,” such as super PACs.

Tuesday’s decision marked the second time in as many days that the Supreme Court has overruled a precedent.

Democrats, who intervened to defend the campaign finance limits at issue in the case, argued that the Supreme Court already decided the question in a 2001 precedent, FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee. Kavanaugh said that decision, known as Colorado II, was overruled.

“To the extent that Colorado II has retained any vitality,” Kavanaugh wrote. “It is now overruled.”

(A day earlier, the court overruled a 1935 Supreme Court precedent known as Humphrey’s Executor v. US that allowed Congress to include restrictions on when a president may fire the leaders of certain independent agencies.)

The dissent of the court’s liberals, written by Justice Elena Kagan, blasted the Supreme Court for another decision that dismantles campaign finance reforms.

“For those who think there is too much of it in this country — for those who would prefer even more money to be pumped even more easily into politics despite the danger of corruption — this overruling is for you,” she wrote.

This headline and story have been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Tierney Sneed and Dianne Gallagher contributed to this report.