Trump got the Senate nominees he wanted. How much will he spend to help them?

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump reshuffled the U.S. Senate map this year, sidelining some incumbent Republicans and promoting loyalists to replace them. Now the question is whether he will put his money where his mouth is.

With four months until the November election, it’s still unclear exactly how much MAGA Inc., the nation’s largest political war chest with $382 million in the bank as of last month, plans to spend on the key election. The silence persisted even as Senate Republican leaders urged Trump’s team, both privately and publicly, to foot the bill for the president’s decisions.

At the forefront is Texas, where Trump successfully backed fiery conservative Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn, a choice that some Republicans say has turned a safe election into a toss-up that will drain resources from other battlegrounds. Democratic candidate James Talarico, a state lawmaker, has made the story of Paxton’s corruption allegations a central target of his campaign.

“The president chose Paxton, and he got $350 million,” Cornyn recently told Semafor. “I think he can spend his money.”

Another challenge emerged in North Carolina, where Sen. Thom Tillis declined to run for reelection after falling out with Trump last year over health care spending. Trump backed Michael Whatley, his hand-picked former Republican National Committee chairman, to run instead, and Democrats hope to flip the seat with former Gov. Roy Cooper.

Some Republican campaign leaders expect MAGA Inc. to replace Whatley in North Carolina, where the state’s various metropolitan media markets can be expensive.

Republicans will likely count on generous support from well-funded official party committees, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this week should be allowed to make unlimited direct contributions to candidates’ campaigns. But even that sum is less than what Trump has stored in MAGA Inc. Even though the president is constitutionally barred from running again, he began fundraising shortly after winning a second term, and he regularly holds fundraisers at his resort properties where tickets cost $1 million per person.

James Blair, the former White House political director who left his government post to coordinate the president’s midterm efforts, was evasive in an interview with Sean Spicer, a former Republican spokesman who hosts a podcast.

“The president is going to spend substantial resources to win the midterm elections,” Blair said. “He cares deeply about the party’s victory.”

As a super PAC, MAGA Inc. can raise unlimited funds from individuals and businesses. However, he is prohibited from coordinating with individual campaigns or national Republican committees, adding to the sense of mystery surrounding his plans.

It’s been more than two months since Blair, along with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, pollster Tony Fabrizio and political adviser Chris LaCivita met at Washington’s Waldorf Astoria to discuss MAGA Inc. strategy.

The gathering aimed to bring together teams of vendors, such as advertisers, canvassing contractors and executives from digital media companies who had worked with the Trump team in key states in previous elections and who would be dispatched once plans were in place.

The president spent much of the year waging a war of retaliation against Republicans who antagonized him. He considered Cornyn insufficiently loyal, resented Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana for voting to convict him in an impeachment trial, and attacked Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky as the “worst Republican congressman in history.” All lost their primaries to Trump-backed challengers.

Cornyn’s defeat weighs heavily on Senate Republicans, who suggest Paxton could cost the party an additional $100 million to defend his seat.

The Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, is still expected to spend money on advertising in Texas but will not play a central role given its obligations elsewhere.

Democrats need to pick up four seats to gain a majority, and they view Alaska, Maine, North Carolina and Ohio as their best opportunities. The Senate Leadership Fund has already committed to spending $342 million in those four states, as well as Iowa, Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire.

When Paxton arrived in Washington after winning the nomination on May 26, he had a cordial meeting with Thune aimed at moving forward together, according to people with knowledge of the conversation who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Later in the day, Thune suggested that Trump should spend money on a candidate that Senate Republicans had not requested.

“We will do what it takes to make sure the state stays red,” Thune told reporters. “But I am hopeful that the president and the resources he can bring will be mobilized.”

“It’s going to be an expensive race,” he added.

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Associated Press White House correspondent Seung Min Kim contributed from Washington. Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.