Happy Monday! Twenty-nine days to go.

As of mid-September, Republicans and their allies had booked more than $557 million in ads across the nine most competitive Senate races, compared with $343 million for Democrats. 

And as the month progresses, those numbers are only going to get bigger.

So should Democrats be worried? A reader in Phoenix asked us exactly that, and the answer turns out to depend less on how much money gets spent than on who's spending it. 

It might also help explain how a Pennsylvania Democrat climbed our rankings in a week when a Republican super PAC outspent his allies nearly three to one.

The other thing to know about this week: there are a lot of debates, and nobody's paying for that airtime.

Below, you'll find our answer to Caucus member Doug's question, this week's debate schedule, the Iowa district that jumped 13 spots on our Top 25, and the House Democrats who raised a full campaign's worth of cash in three months.

— Elias Isquith

It's debate week, with candidates in six of the year's biggest races, across four states, sharing a stage. All times are Eastern.

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

So who's playing offense? Jackson and Turek, both running for Republican-held Senate seats we rate as Toss Ups, and Bottoms, who'd be the first Democrat in Georgia's governor's office since Roy Barnes left it in 2003.

The other three are on defense. El-Sayed and Benson are each trying to keep a Michigan seat in Democratic hands, and so is Ossoff in Georgia, though his race is the one out of the six we no longer consider competitive because he’s up significantly.

If you have to choose, I'd recommend watching the challengers. A Democrat defending a seat mostly needs a debate to be boring; to a challenger in a Toss Up race, few things could be worse than to fail to make an impression.

Campaigns don't have to tell the FEC what they raised from July through September until October 15. At least 13 House Democrats didn't wait.

Cait Conley led the pack, raising $5 million in three months to take on Republican Rep. Mike Lawler in New York's 17th District, a Toss Up. For scale: in 2022, the average first-time House candidate raised about $2.9 million over an entire two-year cycle.

Two other Democrats in our Toss Up category beat that average in a single quarter: Bobby Pulido, who raised $3.4 million in Texas's 15th, and JoAnna Mendoza, who raised $3.3 million in Arizona's 6th.

To find out which two Colorado challengers just raised a combined $4.7 million, read Russell Payne's full story at The Caucus.

Doug G. in Phoenix asks: 

Thanks, Doug, for a great question that helps explain one of the underlying structural realities of how campaigns work in the U.S. today.

To answer the last part of your question first, a cliché in politics — but a useful one — says, "worry about everything, panic about nothing." 

Should the possibility of a wave of last-minute super PAC money concern Democrats? Absolutely.

But here's why it shouldn't cause anyone to spin out.

Federal law gives candidates a discount. For the last 60 days before a general election, TV stations have to sell candidates airtime at the lowest rate they charge any advertiser for the same kind of slot. This year, that window opened on September 4.

Congress wrote that rule in 1971, when TV ads were driving up the cost of running for office. The goal was to make campaigns cheaper and give candidates better access to the airwaves.

The key thing here is that the law only covers candidates. Super PACs, which came along decades later (and are legally independent of the campaigns they support) get no discount. And the costs add up.

Rates depend on the station, but ad buyers generally put the gap between what candidates and super PACs pay at two to three times.

For example: In the first week of September, a Portland, Maine, station charged Senator Susan Collins's campaign $2,200 for a 30-second spot during "Wheel of Fortune." A super PAC backing her paid $10,000 a spot that same week, without a guaranteed airdate.

So, yes, there's going to be last-minute spending. And you'll likely see some eye-watering numbers. But those numbers will be so big, in part, because the super PACs are paying a major premium.

One more thing to keep in mind: there's only so much airtime, and a big enough outside buy can crowd a candidate off the air anyway. That's why we moved New Hampshire's Senate race to Toss Up last week, even though Democrat Chris Pappas has out-raised Republican John E. Sununu more than three to one.

Have a question of your own? Send it to [email protected].

— A new InsiderAdvantage poll has Republican Senator Ashley Moody up seven points on Florida Democrat Angie Nixon, whose campaign is betting on small donors and its ground game to make up the difference. (The Caucus)

— Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is investigating how Amazon, Google, Meta and Oracle use nondisclosure agreements to keep local officials quiet about data center projects. (The Caucus)

— Latino voters now favor Democrats for Congress 59 to 35 percent in a new NBC News/Telemundo poll, twice the margin Democrats had at this point in 2024. They're still split down the middle on the Democratic Party itself, though. (NBC News)

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