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Outside groups have reported $844 million, and the peak is still ahead

Super PACs and other outside groups had reported $844 million of independent expenditures for the 2026 election through September 16, a third more than the same date in 2022. Most of it went to primaries that are already over. In the last midterm, 70 percent of all outside money was reported after this date.

Every number here comes from the itemized independent expenditures outside groups file with the Federal Election Commission: every ad buy, mail piece, and payment a super PAC reports making for or against a federal candidate. Civly loads each filing into its research warehouse and computed these tables from the filed line items, 10,939 of them this cycle through September 16.

Texas and Michigan lead, and primaries drove the totals

Six Senate races have drawn more than $28 million each. The totals include the primaries, and the two biggest, Texas and Michigan, were also the year's most expensive Senate nomination fights: Ken Paxton's defeat of John Cornyn in Texas, and Abdul El-Sayed's narrow win over Haley Stevens in Michigan on August 4.

Kentucky's $45.7 million is almost entirely primary spending: the May contest for the Republican nomination to succeed Mitch McConnell, which Andy Barr won. Maine's money ran through a nomination that changed twice. Graham Platner won the June primary, the party replaced him with former state Senate President Troy Jackson at a July convention, and outside groups spent heavily against both of them.

In every big Senate race, the outside money favors Republicans

Counting only expenditures designated for the general election, $245 million has been reported so far. These are the six biggest Senate battlegrounds, with the November matchups.

General-election independent expenditures through September 16, 2026. "Helping" a party sums spending that supports that party's candidates and spending that opposes the other party's. Iowa is an open seat, Joni Ernst is not seeking re-election. The Ohio winner serves through January 2029.

The two most expensive House races are already over

Both of the year's biggest House spending totals came from primaries that ended months ago. In Manhattan's 12th District, roughly $30 million in reported independent expenditures went into the June primary that Micah Lasher won. In Kentucky's 4th, $21.8 million backed the effort that unseated Representative Thomas Massie, defeated by Trump-endorsed Ed Gallrein in May. The general-election House map, by contrast, has barely started.

Reported independent expenditures by district and election, through September 16, 2026. A dash means no general-election spending reported yet.

One Republican super PAC is a tenth of all of it

The Senate Leadership Fund alone accounts for $81.7 million, one of every ten reported dollars this cycle. No Democratic group is close. The largest, VoteVets, has reported less than a quarter of that.

Lean labels reflect each group's publicly reported orientation, not a classification from the filings. Amounts are the groups' own reported independent expenditures this cycle.

Eighty-three cents of every dollar is advertising

Of the $844 million, $704 million, 83 percent, went to purposes the filers describe as media and advertising. The rest is mail, polling, research, staff, and text messaging. Cycle-wide, 52 percent of the money helps Republican candidates and 41 percent helps Democrats. Seven percent could not be classified because the filing names no party for the candidate.

The reporting itself is about to change speed

Two dates matter. On October 15, every federal committee files its quarterly report, the fullest snapshot of the year. Then on October 14, the twentieth day before the November 3 election, the 48-hour report window opens: from that point, any independent expenditure of $1,000 or more must be reported within two days, and in practice the filings arrive in bursts through election week.

The last midterm shows what that does to the totals. In 2022, outside groups had reported $635 million by the equivalent September date, and the cycle finished at $2.1 billion. Seventy percent of the money arrived after the date this article's numbers stop. In the final three weeks alone, $453 million. If 2026 follows the same calendar shape, this cycle finishes near $2.8 billion. That is arithmetic applied to 2022's shape, not a forecast.

These tables, refreshed weekly, for any race

Civly loads every FEC independent-expenditure filing into its research warehouse, tied to the same donor, committee, and election records behind our research books and donor lists. The numbers in this article are one snapshot, computed September 17 from filings through September 16. The same computation, refreshed weekly for a specific race or state and paired with who funds each spending group, is what we provide to campaigns and parties.

How this was counted

Source and scope

Itemized independent-expenditure line items filed with the FEC and loaded into Civly's research warehouse. The 2026 figures cover expenditures dated January 1, 2025 through September 16, 2026 and designated for primary or general elections. Superseded amendments and filings the FEC flags as suspect are excluded, $65 million and $26.5 billion of line items respectively; summing every row as filed would count amended and erroneous filings more than once and produce a total of $27.4 billion. Runoff and special-election designations outside the primary and general codes are excluded, and line items dated after September 16 are not counted.

Classifying money by party

Each line item carries the filer's own support-or-oppose code and the candidate it targets. Money helps Democrats when it supports a Democratic candidate or opposes a Republican one, and the mirror image for Republicans. Where the filing names no party for the candidate, the dollars are shown as unclassified, $60 million this cycle, 7 percent. Support and oppose are the filers' own designations, not Civly's judgment.

Race totals

Senate races are totaled by state. House races by state and district. Candidates who appear in the files under more than one FEC identifier, which happens when a candidate registers twice, are counted once at the race level; the figures here are unaffected because they never cross a race boundary.

Purpose categories

The advertising share buckets line items whose stated purpose mentions media, ads, or advertising, 83 percent of dollars. The purpose text is free-form filer input, so the bucket is a keyword classification of the filers' own words, not a standardized category.

Historical comparison

The 2018 and 2022 figures apply the same filters to expenditures dated January 1 of the preceding year through the same calendar date, September 16, of the election year. The final-window counts for past cycles cover October 14, 2022 onward and October 17, 2018 onward, each the twentieth day before that year's election. Full-cycle totals for past cycles include all primary and general line items regardless of date.

What this cannot tell you

Independent expenditures are not all outside spending

Dark-money groups that run issue ads without expressly advocating a candidate's election report nothing to the FEC in most cases. Party coordinated spending and electioneering communications sit in separate files. Real outside spending is higher than every number here.

Ad-based trackers measure something bigger

AdImpact projects $11.6 billion in 2026 political ad spending. That includes candidate committees, reservations that have not been paid for yet, and formats the IE files never see. The two figures answer different questions and should not be subtracted from each other.

Amounts are as filed

Groups amend and correct filings. Superseded line items are excluded here, but a filing that later proves wrong is counted until it is amended. The filing lag also means spending from the last few days may not be in yet.

Seven percent of dollars have no party

Line items naming a candidate with no party recorded, $60 million this cycle, are shown in gray on the chart and excluded from the party lead. The party shares in the text are shares of classifiable dollars.

The projection is arithmetic

The $2.8 billion figure applies 2022's calendar shape to 2026's total to date. This cycle may not repeat that shape. Treat it as scale, not forecast.

Federal races only

State-level outside spending, in the 36 governor's races and thousands of legislative races, lives in state filings Civly holds separately and is not counted here.

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