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The National Republican Senatorial Committee is cutting millions of dollars in independent expenditures in Georgia's Senate race, but replacing it with millions in joint spending with Republican Herschel Walker's campaign in the latest example of how the committee is relying on a novel strategy to stretch every dollar in the battle for the Senate majority.
The NRSC cancelled at least $3 million in TV spending over the last day, according to data from the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. But NRSC spokesman Chris Hartline told NBC News it's booking $8.5 million in joint spending with Walker's campaign in "hybrid" ads.
The move, and similar ones in recent weeks, come as frustrations over the party’s finances and candidate quality have boiled over into the public eye, sparking questions over the committee's strategy.
Usually, campaigns are limited in how much they’re allowed to coordinate with national party committees. Altogether, just a sliver of the party committees’ ad budget can be spent on these “coordinated” ads, due to to Federal Election Commission caps. The rest of the NRSC’s ad spending has to come from the independent expenditure branch of the group that can't coordinate with the rest of the party or campaigns about its spending plans.
Outside groups, including independent expenditure arms, have to spend more money to run their ads than candidates do, because federal statute gives candidates the ability to book television ad time at lower rates.
But the NRSC has been heavily leaning on something called "hybrid" ads, which allows them to split the cost of an ad with a campaign as long as the ad spends equal time discussing broader themes instead of the specific race at play. Because the campaign is helping to shoulder the load, the hybrid ad is booked at the cheaper rate only available to candidates.
So by responding to cancellations by its independent expenditure arm by booking millions in hybrid ads, the NRSC is trying to capitalize on that cheaper rate.
In one example from last month, a hybrid ad from the NRSC and Walker spends the first 12 seconds criticizing President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams. Only then does the ad turn to take on Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock directly, and feature Walker.
The Federal Election Commission never issued formal rules on this kind of spending, so there are no specific limits on its use. But while using hybrid ads is not unique to Republicans this cycle (there are numerous examples of hybrid ads being employed by both parties over the years), the heavy spending on these kinds of ads is.
The hybrid ad strategy trades flexibility in content for increased coordination between the NRSC and its candidates, all for a cheaper ad rate.
For example, the NRSC’s independent expenditure arm has run $1.5 million on TV ads, and it’s run $2.1 million in joint ads with Walker’s campaign since Labor Day.
But because those joint ads get lower rates, spending 40% more in joint advertising net the NRSC and Walker about three and a half times more reach, according to an analysis of gross ratings points from AdImpact data.
Abiding by the specific content rules for hybrid ads can be limiting — it’s not always the best strategy to be forced to only use half of a television ad on the specific contours of a race. And the strategy is likely partially born from necessity.
Democratic candidates have massively outraised Republicans in many cases, forcing GOP outside groups to spend big in order to close the gap on the airwaves. Republicans have also been critical of the NRSC's big spending (the group had just $16 million in cash on hand through August compared to $46 million for their Democratic counterparts), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has criticized the party's candidate quality.
While NRSC Chairman and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) wrote in a recent op-ed that "many of the very people responsible for losing the Senate last cycle are now trying to stop us from winning the majority this time by trash-talking our Republican candidates, calling that "an amazing act of cowardice, and ultimately, it’s treasonous to the conservative cause," Scott said he was not referring to McConnell but instead operatives providing unnamed quotes to the media.