In a closed-door meeting Wednesday, Sen. Tim Scott, the chair of the NRSC, told Senate Republicans that the campaign arm will focus its spending going forward on defending GOP seats in Maine, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa and Texas and trying to flip the Democratic-held seats of Michigan and New Hampshire, according to four people in the room who were granted anonymity to share private details.<\/p>\n

That list notably leaves out North Carolina GOP nominee Michael Whatley\u2019s<\/a> battle against Democrat Roy Cooper and Georgia GOP nominee Mike Collins\u2019 effort to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s briefing is the clearest sign yet that Republicans have deprioritized the two states, as POLITICO has reported<\/a>, while senior Republicans grow increasingly resigned to the possibility of losing those races. It\u2019s a remarkable shift: President Donald Trump carried Georgia twice in 2016 and 2024 and North Carolina over the last three presidential elections.<\/p>\n

In deprioritizing North Carolina, the NRSC is effectively ceding a state that Democrats haven\u2019t won in the Senate since 2008.<\/p>\n

Still, other GOP groups with massive war chests, including Trump\u2019s MAGA Inc., could pick up the slack.<\/p>\n

Scott also shared with the senators polling showing Republicans are locked in tight battles in several other key races, which tracks with much of the public polling, according to the four people.<\/p>\n

For example, one poll found that GOP Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio is still trailing former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Scott also showed polling indicating Republican John Sununu is essentially neck-and-neck with Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in New Hampshire, a seat Republicans are laser-focused on trying to flip.<\/p>\n

NRSC did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Collins\u2019 campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Roy Cooper said earlier this year about U.S. Senate races in North Carolina, ‘Democrats are often ahead until they are not.’ And then just last week Cooper, correctly, observed, ‘We know a lot of undecided voters lean Republican.’ We\u2019re confident we will have the resources to get our message out to North Carolina voters and win,\u201d said Whatley Spokesman DJ Griffin in a statement.<\/p>\n

Georgia GOP party chair Josh McKoon dismissed the notion that his state was being deprioritized by Republicans in Washington, even as he acknowledged beating Ossoff will be a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery cycle, someone in Washington leaks that they\u2019re thinking about moving money,\u201d he said in a text message. \u201cWhat matters is who shows up \u2014 and what the actual numbers say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is set to headline a fundraiser<\/a> for Collins in Atlanta on Thursday, alongside the state\u2019s popular Republican governor, Brian Kemp. The Collins campaign is also making the case that one in 10 Georgia voters \u2014 who backed Trump in 2024 and plan to vote for Jackson \u2014 are still “up for grabs,\u201d according to a memo obtained by POLITICO<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal in Georgia is to strike a balance where you are spending as little for Senate as possible while not derailing Rick Jackson\u2019s, so far, very strong bid for Governor in a difficult environment,\u201d said a GOP pollster granted anonymity to speak candidly about the landscape. Public polling shows the governor\u2019s race has much tighter margins, with Jackson leading Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms in some recent surveys<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who lost his Senate primary to Trump-backed Ken Paxton, was also in the room. He later told Blue Light News that the party has to make tough decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point I think the people spending that money are going to have to make hard choices and figure out where the money can have the biggest impact, and certainly Texas is the most expensive,\u201d Cornyn said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"