Top GOP group pauses Senate spending in N.C., goes up in Kansas - Semafor

A Republican super PAC is shifting strategy.

Senate Republicans’ top super PAC is making a tactical change, pausing its ad campaign in North Carolina’s Senate race and launching a new one in Kansas.

Senate Leadership Fund is plowing seven figures into Kansas to help incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall against Democrat Adam Hamilton. After spending more than $30 million in North Carolina’s Senate race, the super PAC is putting further spending there on hold. A Trump-aligned group also has no further spending on the books past this week either, according to Ad Impact.

“SLF’s job is to maintain the majority and this move reflects the most effective and efficient use of resources to do exactly that,” said a person familiar with the plans. The group also recently boosted its spending in Senate races in Ohio and Iowa.

The move to shore up Marshall and put North Carolina on the back burner reflects a shifting Senate battleground map – and Republican Michael Whatley’s struggles in North Carolina against former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Another GOP group cut millions in North Carolina ad reservations last week and some Republicans have been urging their allies to concentrate on other Senate races.

In Kansas, Hamilton is running surprisingly close to Marshall, who is seeking a second term in a state where a Democrat hasn’t won a Senate race in nearly a century.

The new SLF ad hits Hamilton as a “two-face extremist” and is aimed at eroding his centrist credibility with voters, dinging him on his immigration record and linking him to Democrats like Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton and calling him “too-extreme for Kansas.”

Senate Republicans currently hold 53 seats, including North Carolina and Kansas, and can afford to lose up to three seats to keep the majority.