The Most Expensive House and Senate Races of 2026, Ranked

Every big Senate and House race of the 2026 cycle by what has been spent on it, who paid for it and what it comes to per vote, as of late October 2026.

01The Ten Most Expensive Senate Races

These totals add two things together: what the candidates' own campaigns have spent, from their reports to the Federal Election Commission, and what super PACs, party committees and other outside groups have spent for or against them, as tracked by OpenSecrets. It is the same method OpenSecrets uses for its historical rankings, so the 2026 races can be lined up against past ones.

Candidate spending counts the general-election nominees' own campaigns only, cycle-to-date through September 30 or October 14, 2026, depending on the latest report filed. Outside spending is as of October 23, 2026 and covers the whole cycle, primaries included. Georgia includes Jon Ossoff's spending since 2021 and Maine includes Susan Collins's since 2021, because Senate campaigns report over the full six-year term. South Carolina, where Sen. Lindsey Graham died in July and his sister Darline Graham is now the Republican nominee, comes in just below this list.

Texas, Ohio and Michigan are in a league of their own. All three are seats Democrats needed to win or hold to take the Senate, Ohio's is a special election for the seat JD Vance left, and all three were close in polling through October. Iowa, Maine and Alaska are smaller states with smaller totals, but as the cost-per-vote section shows, the money lands harder there.

Georgia is the odd one on the list. Its total is high because Ossoff's campaign has spent about $126 million since 2021, including transfers to other Democrats, one of the biggest war chests in the Senate. Outside groups have largely stayed away: about 24% of the spending in Georgia is outside money, the lowest share in the top ten.

02Who Is Paying for It

In nine of the ten most expensive Senate races, outside groups have spent more than the candidates. Georgia is the only exception. In Iowa, outside money is 84% of the total, and in Ohio 81%.

Candidates' own campaigns   Outside groups

Candidate committee spending (FEC) plus outside spending for or against the candidates (OpenSecrets), as of late October 2026.

Most of that outside money is spent attacking. In Texas, groups have spent about $203 million against Talarico, against about $22 million supporting him. Sherrod Brown in Ohio has drawn about $154 million of opposing spending. On the other side, Paxton has had the most supportive outside spending of any candidate, about $93 million, which makes sense: his own campaign had spent about $15 million through September 30, a fraction of Talarico's $114 million.

The biggest single player is the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Senate Republican leadership, which with its affiliated Texas PAC had spent about $442 million across 13 races by October 23. Its Democratic counterpart, Senate Majority PAC, and its affiliates had spent about $239 million. Elon Musk gave the Senate Leadership Fund $158 million in September alone, according to FEC filings, part of about $366 million he has spent on the midterms this cycle, according to Reuters.

Almost none of this is the candidates' own money. Apart from a $65,000 contribution from Mike Collins in Georgia, none of the leading Senate nominees has put money of their own into their campaign or lent it money, according to their FEC reports. The money in these races is donor money and super PAC money.

03The Record Book

Here is how the 2026 races compare with the most expensive Senate races ever, on the same candidates-plus-outside-groups basis.

Past races: OpenSecrets total spending (candidates plus outside groups), final. 2026 races: as of late October 2026, before the last weeks of spending are reported.

The previous record was the Georgia race of 2020 and its January 2021 runoff, when David Perdue and Jon Ossoff and the groups backing them spent $516M. By OpenSecrets' measure Texas has already passed it by about $44M, and the most expensive weeks of any campaign are the last ones. Ohio is closing in on the $451M spent on its 2024 race between Sherrod Brown and Bernie Moreno.

The Texas money started early. The two Texas Senate primaries drew more than $122 million in ads by late February, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, more than Arizona's 2022 Senate primary, the previous record for a Senate primary. On ad spending alone, AdImpact puts the Texas race above $500 million for the cycle, which Time reported makes it only the second race outside a presidential contest to pass that mark, after Ohio's 2024 Senate race. Counting ads only, Ohio 2024 is still ahead, so the Texas record depends on counting the way OpenSecrets does.

04What It Costs Per Vote

Dividing each total by the number of votes cast in the state's 2022 Senate race, or its 2022 governor's race where there was no Senate race, changes the ranking completely. Big states spread the money over millions of voters. Small states do not.

Spending as of late October 2026 divided by votes cast in the state's 2022 Senate race, or its 2022 governor's race where there was no 2022 Senate race (Texas, Michigan and Maine). Nebraska is left out of this table. Turnout in 2026 will differ, so treat these as a guide to scale.

Alaska, with about 262,000 votes cast in its 2022 Senate race, comes to about $497 per vote. Maine is next at $254. Texas, the most expensive race in total, works out to about $69.

05The House

House races cost far less, because there are 435 of them and each covers a single district. The best common yardstick across districts is advertising, which AdImpact tracks race by race. These were the most expensive general-election House races by ad spending as of October 12.

AdImpact ad spending, aired plus reserved, general election, as of October 12, 2026. *District redrawn for 2026, so no per-vote figure is given. Per-vote figures for the other districts use 2024 turnout as a rough guide.

Four of the six are in districts drawn new for 2026, part of the round of mid-decade redistricting that started in Texas in 2025. North Carolina's map was redrawn around Don Davis's seat, Texas's new map put Vicente Gonzalez in a more Republican district, California's Proposition 50 made David Valadao's seat more Democratic, and Florida's new map moved Jared Moskowitz into a redrawn 25th District.

Counting primaries changes the leader. Michigan's 7th District, where Tom Barrett is defending his seat, had passed $61 million in ads by October 20 including an expensive Democratic primary, which AdImpact's numbers make the most expensive House race in the country. The most expensive House primary on record was this year too: the Kentucky Republican primary in which Ed Gallrein beat Thomas Massie drew about $37 million in total spending, according to Louisville Public Media's count of FEC filings.

06Where the Money Goes

Most of it goes to television. AdImpact projects about $11.6 billion of political advertising across all 2026 races, federal, state and local, which would make this the first midterm to out-spend the presidential cycle before it. Broadcast TV is still just under half of that, and streaming has grown to about 23%, ahead of cable.

Who buys the ad matters as much as how much. By law, candidates get the station's lowest rate in the 60 days before a general election, while super PACs pay whatever the market will bear. In Texas, the Texas Tribune found that through the end of September, Republicans had paid for 72% of broadcast ad dollars but got only 54% of the airtime, using AdImpact data, because so much of the Republican money came from outside groups paying higher rates.

The rules also changed this year. In June 2026 the Supreme Court struck down the limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with their candidates, in a case brought by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Party committees could already coordinate with their candidates, but only up to set dollar limits. They can now spend without limit in coordination with their nominees, which is one more channel for money to reach these races in the final stretch.