Republicans fear 2:1 cash advantage will lose to toxic Trump unpopularity: ‘A million dollars of advertising in October is a drop in the bucket’

Republicans are entering the final month of the midterm campaign increasingly anxious that the $1 billion at their disposal may not be enough to fend off sweeping losses as the party reckons with President Donald Trump’s unpopularity, persistent cost concerns and the fallout from the war in Iran. The cash advantage, spread out across a half-dozen groups, is driven largely by the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc., which had nearly $416 million in cash on hand at the end of August and began stepping up its spending on critical races in September. But that money may have come too late, forcing the president’s group to pay much higher rates because of the shrinking availability of air time. Four Republican Senate campaign officials said groups that reserved advertising…