The top super political action committee for Senate Republicans is canceling all the remaining ads it had booked in North Carolina as of Friday, shifting away tens of millions of dollars in a move that signals that Republicans no longer see a path to winning the state this fall.
At the same time, the super PAC, called the Senate Leadership Fund, is making its first investment of the cycle in Kansas -- a sign of rising concern among Republicans in red states -- with a new ad attacking the Democratic nominee there.
If Republicans lose North Carolina, it would give Democrats one of the four seats they need to flip the Senate in the fall -- if Democrats hold all of their own seats.
Ad cancellations are a common, and very telling, move down the stretch of campaigns as they reveal where national operatives see their best path to a majority. The cancellation of the North Carolina ads was first reported by Semafor and confirmed by two people familiar with the decision.
The North Carolina seat is currently held by Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican who is retiring. Democrats nominated Roy Cooper, a popular former governor who had served two terms. The Republican nominee is Michael Whatley, the former chair of the Republican National Committee.
The Senate Leadership Fund declined to comment.
“Undecided voters who break late decide the election in North Carolina and the majority of those late-breakers typically go Republican,” said DJ Griffin, a spokesperson for Whatley, adding he was “confident we have the resources to highlight career politician Roy Cooper’s 40 years of failures.”
Super PACs aligned with President Trump also do not have any future reservations for airtime in the North Carolina Senate race.
In Kansas, the new reservation shows that Republicans are worried about the reelection bid of Sen.Roger Marshall, the Republican incumbent, who faces Adam Hamilton, the pastor of the largest United Methodist congregation in the country.
The new ad attacks Hamilton as a “two-faced extremist.”
The full size of the Kansas spending was not clear, but the initial buy was planned to be in the millions of dollars, according to the two people familiar with the decision. Democrats have not won a Senate election in Kansas since 1932.
The Senate Leadership Fund had initially planned to spend $71 million in North Carolina. The group has spent more than $30 million of those funds, according to one of the people familiar with the decision. The group still had $18 million reserved for the final month just on broadcast and cable television, according to data from AdImpact, the ad-tracking service.
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader, has continued to back Whatley and attended a fundraiser for him virtually on Thursday, the two people familiar with the decision said.
In preparation for these cancellations, an increased number of Republican Senate candidates started their own dedicated super PACs, in part so they could insulate themselves from cuts from the Senate Leadership Fund. And yet Whatley’s dedicated group, Old North Action, previously canceled ads as well.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.