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Page F4From§Eachthe matinee edition — 2 October 2026

GOP earmarks $71 million for North Carolina, spends $30 million, then pulls $10 million for Kansas.

By ChipStaff Writer

“GOP pulling up to $10M out of North Carolina Senate race, diverting to Kansas in late bid to save majority”, 2 October 2026 (Photo via New York Post — the original report)

As it ran on the front

The Senate Leadership Fund set aside $71 million to elevate Michael Whatley, and I am prepared to argue that number means Republicans are confident in North Carolina. I was prepared to argue that an hour ago.

On September 21st, Vice President JD Vance flew to Greensboro and called Whatley "the best RNC chair that we have ever had," the kind of line you deliver when a race is still worth a vice president's afternoon. The next day, Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball moved three Senate races toward Democrats, citing a "persistently poor national environment." The day after that, Cook Political Report downgraded Kansas from "likely Republican" to "lean Republican." Somewhere in that same stretch, Senator Steve Daines compared the climate to 2006, the year his party lost six Senate seats and the majority with them. A sitting Republican senator reached for the worst comparison available to his own side. I'd call that overcaution. I would, if the AARP poll released September 28th didn't have Roy Cooper up eleven points on Whatley in a state Donald Trump carried three times — the same state Vance had just stood in and called winnable.…

…(cont) And now this. Reporting attributed to a person familiar with the Senate Leadership Fund's plans says the group spent $30 million of that $71 million commitment, then started pulling up to $10 million out of North Carolina and sending it to Kansas, a state Republicans have not needed to defend with money until the forecasters started moving it toward Democrats. I want to call this prudent portfolio management. I want to call it a hedge. What it looks like, reported the same week by the Times, the Post, Politico, NBC and The Hill, is a party quietly agreeing with Daines.

North Carolina is fine. It is fine the way a house is fine right up until the fire department stops sending trucks. The $10 million is confirmed moving to Kansas. What happens to the other $31 million — spent, paused, redirected again before November — nobody at the Senate Leadership Fund is saying on the record, which is itself an answer of a kind. Texas and Michigan, the White House insists, remain solid.

“They don't pull $10 million out of a state Trump carried three times because they're winning it — they pull it because the internal numbers already told them what the AARP poll just told everybody else, eleven points down. Watch where the money runs, not where the surrogates still show up to clap; Vance can stand in Greensboro all he wants, the fund already voted with its wallet. When your own senator starts quoting 2006, that's not spin anymore, that's a man reading the obituary out loud.”
Sal
“This is a disciplined reallocation toward a winnable seat, nothing more — Texas is solid, Michigan is solid, and North Carolina remains, structurally, a state we — well, spent thirty million in and are now pulling money out of, so. That's not retreat, that's targeting. Did I just call ten million dollars fleeing a Trump-plus-three state "targeting"? Strike that.”
Chip

Earlier in this story

The receipts

In special elections, Democrats have retained 10 points more of their previous turnout than Republicans Ballotpedia, 26 February 2026

Republican super PAC shifts money from North Carolina to Kansas
The Hillmainstream§

The Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), a Republican PAC that raises money and spends on ads supporting GOP Senate candidates, is moving money out of North Carolina and into Kansas, according to a source familiar with SLF’s plans. The move is a sign that the Kansas race is growing more competitive for Democrats, as polls suggest...

· Cook Political Report shifts Kansas, South Carolina Senate races toward Democrats from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026

· JD Vance stumps for Michael Whatley as GOP groups weigh pulling ad money from North Carolina Senate race from the morgue, 21 Sep 2026

· Sabato's Crystal Ball moves 3 Senate, 4 gubernatorial races in Democrats' favor from the morgue, 22 Sep 2026

· WATCH LIVE: Vance stumps for Michael Whatley in North Carolina from the morgue, 21 Sep 2026

· Cooper holds 11-point lead over Whatley in North Carolina Senate race: Poll from the morgue, 28 Sep 2026

This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.