Politics
NewsOnScale Staff
October 15, 2026
The 2026 midterm elections are projected to exceed $10 billion in total spending — making them the most expensive midterm election in American history and likely the most expensive election of any kind ever held in the United States.
This is not what the founders designed.
How it got here
The Citizens United Supreme Court decision in 2010 held that corporations and outside groups have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited money on political advertising. The decision created Super PACs — organizations that can raise and spend unlimited funds as long as they don't formally coordinate with candidates.
The result was predictable. Billionaires and corporations began spending at levels that make individual campaign contributions — which remain capped — largely irrelevant to the overall money landscape.
In the 2026 cycle, Elon Musk has disclosed approximately $90 million in contributions to Republican-aligned Super PACs, making him among the largest publicly disclosed donors in this election. America PAC alone has reported $40 million in independent expenditures for Senate and House races. Dark money — contributions routed through nonprofits that are not required to disclose their donors — flows through the system in amounts that are not publicly known by definition.
AI-generated political advertising has simultaneously lowered the cost of producing content, meaning the same dollar now buys more persuasion than it did in previous cycles. The combination of more money and cheaper production has accelerated spending beyond anything previously seen.
What the founders actually designed
James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 10 that the greatest threat to a republic was factions — organized groups with concentrated financial interests capturing government to serve themselves rather than the common good. The entire structure of the Constitution was designed to frustrate that outcome.
The founders did not anticipate corporations with unlimited spending rights. They did not anticipate Super PACs. They did not anticipate a single individual spending $90 million to shape a midterm election. They anticipated citizens electing representatives. They designed a system for that specific purpose.
What they feared most is exactly what Citizens United enabled.
What $10 billion buys
Television advertising in swing districts at a scale that drowns out organic political speech. Digital targeting that reaches specific voters with specific messages based on their data profiles. Ground operations that can knock on millions of doors. Pollsters, consultants, and lawyers in numbers that no individual candidate without institutional backing can match.
It buys a system where the candidates who win are increasingly the ones whose positions align with the interests of the people writing the checks — not the interests of the voters casting the ballots.
The honest picture three weeks out
The 2026 midterms will be decided in part by which party's institutional donors outspend the other's. Individual candidates without major party backing or billionaire support compete on an uneven playing field that the founders specifically tried to prevent.
The most expensive election in American history is also the one happening while inflation sits at 3.7%, the American Dream costs $5.3 million, and the average American earns $3.6 million in their entire career.
The people writing the billion-dollar checks are not the people living those numbers.
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