Before the 2024 election, I sat at my desk and confidentlywrote a column minimizing Elon Musk’s political footprint, zeroing in on his ground-game spending in my home state of Pennsylvania.
I looked at the eye-popping numbers being thrown around by his newly minted America PAC and fell back on the rules of politics. There is a sharp point of diminishing returns for late-stage political spending. Prior to his infusion of cash, I also heard from several operatives on the ground who said their informal polling and canvassing indicated Harris would win.
After a certain threshold, flooding the airwaves with television ads, filling mailboxes with glossy flyers and going door-to-door don’t move the needle.
As a result, I dismissed the Trump campaign’s reliance on Musk’s America PAC, arguing that the promised canvassers “never materialized” in Western Pennsylvania. Subsequent post-election analysis proved my skepticism wrong.
Musk’s $170-plus-million ground-game investment was designed to mobilize low-propensity voters. Looking back at how Trump easily won Pennsylvania, particularly southwestern Pennsylvania, I have come to believe I was wrong about Musk’s involvement.
He didn’t outright win it for Trump, but he helped. That’s why, in these final weeks before the midterms, I believe Musk’s record spending can’t be dismissed.
I underestimated a profound, systemic shift in how modern political campaigns operate. Musk did not merely dump money into a conventional, fleeting advertising blitz. Instead, he did something more structural and permanent. He bought the ground game. Having worked on congressional campaigns in the past — albeit in the “old days” — I know that getting people to go door-to-door remains an effective way to get voters to the polls on Election Day.
What Musk did, and is doing this year with his record$276 million rescue mission, is to enter battleground areas and some red states, including Texas, replacing or heavily subsidizing traditional party infrastructure. His money builds data systems, hires armies of canvassers and takes over the work of tracking down and turning out low-propensity voters.
It’s a private outsourcing of what should be a public democratic function. I believe Musk made a difference in 2024, and he has the potential to do the same again this year, especially in tight races.
We are witnessing the terrifying proof of concept of that 2024 experiment. Friday’s report inThe New York Times details an “avalanche of GOP cash” keeping the Republican Party competitive across the country, despite fundraising deficits in individual candidate races and deep-seated institutional friction.
At the top of this heap of cash is, once again, Elon Musk. According to recent disclosures highlighted by the Times, Musk has already funneled $366 million into the 2026 cycle. This is no longer an anomaly or a one-off experiment circa 2024. I now see it as becoming the most integral part of the Republican campaign apparatus.
That’s why, having learned my lesson from 2024, I am behaving like a cynic this year. Yes, it’s easy to get swept away by polls predicting a blue wave, to belittle the quality of GOP candidates and to look at the calendar as if it’s the fourth quarter of a game with 10 seconds left.
Thedramatic finish of the recent Jaguars-Eagles game, where a long kick return and a 57-yard field goal completely flipped the scoreboard in the final eight seconds, reminds us that the game isn’t over until the clock hits zero. And in 2026, things move much, much faster than they did in 2018 during the previous consequential midterms.
Especially today, no matter how late the hour seems in a campaign, there is always time left on the clock for the GOP to execute a final push and win.
It is absolutely crucial that we take seriously the structural reality of this cash influx. The money is acting as a stabilizing, protective layer that insulates the GOP’s electoral chances from its broader organizational or messaging, candidate and voter-malaise problems.
In other words, if I may quote my grandmother, “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Right now, money is propping up evil candidates like Ken Paxton in Texas and Roger Marshall in Kansas.
Since the GOP has a history of struggling to raisesmall-dollar donations, and its loathsome candidates face moral and ethical challenges, a massive injection of billionaire capital can paper over those shortfalls and embarrassments.
The GOP builds a parallel campaign infrastructure: privately funded, privately managed and completely unaccountable to the public. Thanks to the equally morally and ethically challengedSupreme Court, a handful of ultra-wealthy donors (read Musk) can keep a party competitive against the roaring headwinds of public sentiment.
That’s why this money should serve as an urgent warning for this election cycle. And I get why it gets glossed over. It’s hard to explain to an average voter what $100 million can do to rig the system. People would much rather talk about all the more digestible things like “rock salt” comments.
When door-knocking, voter registration drives and localized turnout operations are handed over to Musk and his wads of cash, the outcome is surely affected. Power shifts away from local party committees, grassroots volunteers and the voters themselves.
Money becomes the root of all election evils.
We cannot view spending like Musk’s as an afterthought, particularly as we keep talking with zeal about a blue tsunami, about the House and Senate switching to Democratic control, and about premature arguments overwhich Democrats will head certain committees.
As a columnist and someone who obsessively follows all things politics, admitting a significant miscalculation is never easy. But ignoring the lesson of what happened in 2024, particularly in my beloved Pennsylvania, would be a huge mistake.
In 2024, I drank the Kool-Aid of Kamala Harris coming to the rescue and downplayed the enormous shortcomings of the most morally and ethically challenged politician in U.S. history.
I used to view Musk’s spending as just another oversized ad buy. Today, we have no excuse for that kind of naivety. The massive avalanche of cash we are seeing will undoubtedly make an impact, but which side it will carry to victory remains as deep a mystery as where all that money comes from and where it goes.