By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff 
With just 40 of the 100 Senate seats and six retiring senators in their ranks, Senate Republicans have virtually no chance of regaining a majority in the 2010 elections. But the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which orchestrates the party’s national Senate campaign, is holding its own in fundraising.
The NRSC raised $2.8 million in July, compared to $2 million for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), according to updated campaign finance reports that both organizations filed last week with the Senate Office of Public Records in Washington.
The coming months will tell, though, whether the July numbers mark a trend or were an anomaly. The DSCC — which dominated the NRSC in fundraising during the pro-Democratic campaign years of 2006 and 2008 — still has raised more total funds than the NRSC over the first seven months of this year, by $25.3 million to $23.5 million.
There is no question that the NRSC is putting in a stronger performance early in this election cycle than in the one before. The GOP committee’s fundraising is up 29 percent over what it raised in the first seven months of 2007. With the national economic downturn acting as a drag on fundraising in general, the NRSC is the only one of the parties’ four congressional campaign committees that has raised more in the first seven months of 2009 than in the first seven months of 2007.
The two parties’ balance sheets were close to even at the end of July. The DSCC had $7.2 million left to spend and $3.3 million in debts; the NRSC has $4.4 million in cash on hand and no debts.
The DSCC spent $508,000 on July on expenses related to the long recount of votes and legal actions in the 2008 Minnesota Senate race, which the state Supreme Court decided in Democrat Al Franken ’s favor on June 30. Nearly all of the DSCC’s expenditures went to the law firm Perkins Coie.
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
• Receipts, July 2009: $2 million
• Receipts, year to date: $25.3 million
• Disbursements, July 2009: $2.9 million
• Disbursements, year to date: $18.4 million
• Cash on hand, July 31: $7.2 million
• Debts, July 31: $3.3 million
