State Sen. Doug Mastriano has established himself as a frontrunner in the GOP primary for Pennsylvania governor despite being vastly outspent on the airwaves. 

Mastriano’s campaign has spent just $332,000 on ads ahead of Tuesday’s primary, accounting for just over 1 percent of the $22.7 million spent on the governor's race by the total GOP primary field, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. 

Mastriano, who has championed former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, has been the target of a $1.1 million ad campaign from Pennsylvania Patriots for Election Integrity. The group has knocked Mastriano for supporting a 2019 law expanding mail voting in the state (which Mastriano has said he would reverse if elected). 

Despite minimal spending on campaign ads, Mastriano has established himself as a frontrunner in the crowded race and he picked up Trump’s endorsement over the weekend. 

Trump’s endorsement in the final days of the primary race came after he encouraged his supporters last month to reject former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain, calling McSwain a “coward” for not investigating election fraud. 

Half of all ad spending in the GOP race — $11.1 million — has bolstered McSwain. But Commonwealth Leaders Fund, which has spent millions supporting McSwain, announced over the weekend that it is instead backing former Rep. Lou Barletta in an attempt to consolidate behind one Mastriano opponent. 

The group’s decision comes after two other candidates, state Sen. Jake Corman and former Rep. Melissa Hart, dropped out of the race last week and endorsed Barletta, whose campaign has spent $967,000 on ads.

Aside from McSwain, the top spender in the race has been former Delaware County Councilman David White’s campaign, which has dropped nearly $5.7 million on ads so far. The conservative Club for Growth Action has spent $801,000 on an ad campaign opposing White.

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, will be defending his seat Tuesday when he faces a challenge from personal injury attorney Bryan Smith in Idaho's 2nd district GOP primary.

The two have been engaged in an intense ad war, running over a dozen unique ads combined this cycle. Most of those ads have been on the offensive, with Smith attacking Simpson over his decision to vote in favor of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Simpson has attacked Smith for his debt collection practices, featuring families in his ads who were sought after by Smith’s business to pay back small amounts.

Smith has spent over $450,000 on his ads, while Simpson has spent just over $368,000 on the airwaves, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking firm. 

However, Simpson has been defended by outside groups, including the Defending main street Super PAC, which has run ads supporting him. That group has spent over $460,000 on ads in Simpson’s favor. 

Defending Main Street is the political arm of the Republican Main Street Partnership and is spending in House GOP primaries across the country, including in Ohio and Minnesota.

Smith has had the backing of an outside group, too. America Proud PAC has poured $405,000 into ads supporting him in the district, accusing Simpson of being a “career politician” and a RINO (Republican In Name Only). The group is largely funded by Boise real estate developer Joe C. Russell, according to FEC filings.

Simpson has been serving in this seat since 1999, and it’s the second time he’s faced a primary challenge from Smith. In 2014, Smith ran against Simpson, but Simpson earned 61.6 percent of the vote on election night, compared to Smith’s 38.4 percent.

Though former President Donald Trump has endorsed against some members of Congress who voted in favor of the January 6 commission, he has not publicly supported either candidate in this race.

That’s the net-negative rating for the Democratic Party in the latest national NBC News poll, with 50 percent of adults saying they had negative feelings about the Democratic Party and 31 percent saying they had positive feelings about the party. That’s also the highest net-negative rating the Democratic Party has seen in 30 years of the survey. 

Adults surveyed in the poll gave the Republican Party a net negative rating of minus 11 percent, with 46 percent viewing the party positively and 46 percent viewing the party negatively. 

The results are yet another warning sign for Democrats heading into a difficult midterm election, with the Democratic Party’s image struggling across the country. Among registered voters in the suburbs, the Democratic Party had a net negative rating of minus 24 percent, which is nearly three times their negative rating among suburban voters in 2018. 

The party also had a 2 percent net-positive rating among urban voters, a sizable drop from a plus 15 percent rating in 2021. Rural voters have increasingly reported negative feelings about the Democratic Party, giving the party a rating of minus 32 percent. 

 Here's the positive/negative ratings – from most popular, to least popular – for all the politicians or institutions the NBC News poll measured:

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy: 62 percent positive, 9 percent negative (+53)
• Disney: 33 percent positive, 30 percent negative (+3)
• Ron DeSantis: 28 percent positive, 26 percent negative (+2)
• The US Supreme Court: 36 percent positive, 35 percent negative (+1)
• The Republican Party: 35 percent positive, 46 percent negative (-11)
• Joe Biden: 37 percent positive, 51 percent negative (-14)
• Donald Trump: 36 percent positive, 51 percent negative (-16)
• Kamala Harris: 31 percent positive, 48 percent negative (-17)
• The Democratic Party: 31 percent positive, 50 percent negative (-19)

The crypto executives behind multiple super PACs this cycle will get their first chances at victory next week in a handful of House primaries as they flood Democratic races with cash.

The super PACs Protect Our Future and Web3Forward have spent a combined $8 million on ads in next week’s primaries so far, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact.

The bulk of that spending has been focused on Oregon’s 6th District, Protect Our Future has spent over $6.5 million on ads supporting former government contractor Carrick Flynn’s election. The 6th District is brand new, created due to population gain during redistricting in the state.

Protect Our Future is a new group funded by crypto executives including Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the crypto currency exchange FTX. The PAC has endorsed nearly a dozen candidates and lawmakers and claims to be focused on candidates who take long--term stances on certain legislation, particularly related to pandemic preparedness.

The amount of money spent on Flynn significantly outweighs the money spent on any other candidate in the race, which include veteran and businessman Cody Reynolds, internal medicine Dr. Kathleen Harder, and former state Rep. Andrea Salinas, who has the support of BOLD PAC, the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. House Majority PAC, a group tied to top congressional Democrats, has also spent in Flynn’s favor. 

Protect Our Future has also spent significantly in two other open Democratic primaries in deep blue districts – Kentucky’s 3rd District and North Carolina’s 4th district.

In North Carolina, the group has spent $625,000 on ads supporting state Sen. Valerie Foushee, who’s running to replace retiring Democratic Rep. David Price. She’s been endorsed by EMILY’s List, the Congressional Black Caucus PAC and other members of Congress.

Her most notable opponent is Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, who’s been endorsed by progressive lawmakers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken is also running.

In Kentucky, Protect Our Future has poured $591,000 into ads supporting state Sen. Morgan McGarvey. McGarvey faces one opponent, state Rep. Attica Scott, in his bid for an open seat to replace retiring Rep. John Yarmuth. 

Another crypto-backed super PAC has spent heavily on the open seat race in Oregon’s 4th District. 

Rep. Peter DeFazio is retiring, leaving a reliably Democratic seat open. He and Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., have endorsed Val Hoyle, Oregon’s Labor Commissioner.

Web3 Forward, which is tied to another PAC funded by crypto executives from companies like Coinbase and FTX, has spent $286,000 on ads supporting Hoyle. The PAC “supports Democratic candidates committed to making the next generation internet more secure, open and owned by the users,” according to the group’s website.

Web3Forward so far endorsed three Democratic candidates in primaries – Hoyle, Sydney Kamlager in California and Jasmine Crockett in Texas, who’s facing a primary runoff later this month.

A pair of super PACs launched two new TV ads Friday morning attacking conservative commentator Kathy Barnette as she surges in Pennsylvania’s GOP Senate primary. 

The ads come as former President Donald Trump, who has backed celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz in the race, and Barnette’s opponents target her as she has turned the race between Oz and former hedge fund manager David McCormick into a three-way contest. 

Honor Pennsylvania, a pro-McCormick super PAC that’s spent $16.1 million largely attacking Oz, launched an ad where a narrator asks, “What do we really know about Kathy Barnette?” 

The spot goes on to accuse Barnette of supporting the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd and of saying, “I was not a Trumper,” citing her Twitter feed and her book.  

Another super PAC, USA Freedom Fund, launched a new ad blasting Barnette for supporting the building of a statue of former President Barack Obama.

The ad starts by mentioning comments Obama made about conservatives in 2008, saying some conservative voters are bitter and “cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them.”

“Remember how that made you feel?” the ad’s narrator asks. He adds, “One candidate for Senate doesn't care. In fact, Kathy Barnette wants to build a statue of Barack Obama right next to the one of Abraham Lincoln on Capitol Hill.”

The ad references a Change.org petition that appears to be written by Barnette, advocating for erecting statues of Obama, his family and abolitionist Frederick Douglas in Washington, D.C. The petition was written two years ago. NBC News hasn’t independently verified whether Barnette was indeed the person who wrote the petition.

USA Freedom Fund previously supported former Ohio state treasurer Josh Mandel’s unsuccessful run for Senate.

A super PAC supporting one of GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn's primary challengers launched two new ads targeting the controversial congressman ahead of next week’s primary in North Carolina. 

Cawthorn, who has former President Donald Trump’s endorsement, has been at the center of numerous scandals. 

The first-term congressman, who faced sexual harassment allegations in his first bid, drew criticism for his repeated lies and aggressive rhetoric about the 2020 election; he called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “thug” and he said that he had been invited to drug-fueled sex parties by other lawmakers. And he’s also been the subject of leaked photos and videos of a sexual nature that attempt to paint Cawthorn in a negative light. 

The new spots from the outside group Results for NC slam Cawthorn for falsely claiming an accident prevented him from attending the Naval Academy, even though he had already been rejected prior to the accident. 

One of the new ads labels Cawthorn an untrustworthy “playboy politician,” and flashes one of those leaked images. The other spot features a woman veteran who is backing state Sep. Chuck Edwards in the May 17 primary. 

Results for NC has spent the most on the airwaves of any campaign or outside group in the 11th District so far, dropping $739,000 on ads, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. 

Edwards has picked up endorsements as Cawthorn has racked up headlines. North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is supporting the state senator. 

If no candidate wins more than 30 percent of the primary vote on Tuesday, the top two contenders head to a primary runoff in July.

North Carolina Democrat Cheri Beasley's internal campaign polling shows her in a statistical tie with the two Republican frontrunners squaring off in next week's Senate primary. 

In a new polling memo shared with NBC News, Beasley, a former state Supreme Court chief justice, is tied with Republican Rep. Ted Budd at 45 percent in a general election matchup with 10 percent undecided. Beasley trails former Gov. Pat McCrory in a separate matchup with McCrory at 45, Beasley at 44 and 11 percent undecided. 

The live-caller poll of 800 likely general election voters taken from April 28 through May 4 has a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percent, meaning that the polling shows Beasley in a statistical dead heat with either of the two Republicans. The poll tested head-to-head matchups, which don't capture third-party candidates that may be on the ballot (last cycle, conservative third-party candidates pulled about 4 percent of the vote in the Senate race). 

The memo includes favorability ratings for all three candidates, suggesting that the raucous GOP primary may have affected how voters view McCrory and Budd, even while Beasley remains known to a smaller portion of the general electorate. 

McCrory, who served four years as the state's governor, has a favorable rating in the poll from 33 percent of the likely general electorate, compared to a 45 percent unfavorable rating. Budd has a 28 percent favorable rating and a 30 percent unfavorable rating. 

By comparison, Beasley has a 30 percent favorable rating and a 15 percent unfavorable rating in the poll.

The memo also suggests Beasley leads Budd with suburban voters and white college-educated voters, but the full crosstabs of the poll were not included. 

Most public polls show a tight contest in a state that hasn't elected a Democratic senator since 2008 but did elect a Democratic governor in 2016, when Roy Cooper defeated McCrory. Former President Donald Trump won the state in the 2020 presidential election, defeating President Biden by a margin of 50 percent to 49 percent. 

The race is expected to draw tens of millions in ad spending — the GOP backed Senate Leadership Fund has $22 million of ad time booked in the race already after primary day, per the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. And Politico reported Thursday that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is buying $6.5 million in advertising time in the state with ads starting Friday. 

Most high profile primary elections this cycle have been viewed at least partially as a test of former President Trump’s power of the Republican Party through the success of candidates he's endorsed. But on Tuesday, we’ll have the first chance to see how far President Joe Biden’s power extends as his first endorsed candidate faces a challenge in Oregon’s Democratic primary for the 5th congressional district.

Biden is backing Rep. Kurt Schrader as he faces a challenge from public official Jamie McLeod-Skinner who has attacked Schrader for taking “millions in corporate PAC money” as he “sold out to big pharma.” 

Schrader has defended himself on the airwaves, citing his record fighting for lower prescription drug prices and affordable healthcare.

He’s spent over $1.8 million on ads already, with five days to go until the primary. Two groups — Center Forward and Mainstream Democrats — have also spent money on the airwaves to support Schrader and attack McLeod-Skinner. They’ve spent a combined $1.3 million, according to AdImpact.

Center Forward in particular has run ads highlighting the fact that McLeod-Skinner was fired from a position as city manager in Phoenix, Oregon, in 2018 for being too antagonistic.

McLeod-Skinner has spent just over $250,000 on ads. She also trails Schrader in fundraising, raising almost $700,000 so far this cycle compared to the over $2 million Schrader has raised, according to the FEC. 

She’s also run for Congress before. In 2018, she ran for and won the Democratic nomination for Oregon’s 2nd district, but was defeated in the general election by then-Rep. Greg Walden.

The non-partisan Cook Political Report rates this district as Lean Democratic, but there's a chance Republicans could flip the seat in November. On that side of the aisle, Jimmy Crumpacker and Lori Chavez-DeRemer are engaged in a tight primary. 

Crumpacker ran for the state’s 2nd district in 2020, but came fourth in the GOP primary. Chavez-DeRemer served as mayor of Happy Valley from 2010 to 2018.

Chavez-DeRemer has raised $669,000 so far this cycle, while Crumpacker trails slightly, having raised $541,000, according to the FEC. He also slightly trails her in ad spending. According to AdImpact, Chavez-DeRemer has spent $286,000 on ads so far, while Crumpacker has spent $254,000.

The Club for Growth is coming to the aid of conservative commentator Kathy Barnette, whose Pennsylvania GOP primary candidacy has gained steam in recent days, with a new $2 million ad buy hoping to magnify her surge. 

It's the Club's first expenditure of the primary, a biographical spot that features Barnette talking about her roots growing up on a rural pig farm and serving in the military before pivoting to her attacking Democrats.

"Kathy Barnette is a principled conservative and a fighter who will take on the socialists in Washington to preserve the American Dream for generations to come,” David McIntosh, the president of Club for Growth Action, said in a statement. “We look forward to supporting Barnette in her race to become the next Senator from Pennsylvania.”

The spending push is good enough to make the Club the top spender in the race's final week, a shake-up on airwaves that have long been dominated by the efforts supporting celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz and businessman David McCormick. 

Up until this point, the pro-Barnette effort has been virtually non-existent on the airwaves. The pro-McCormick and Oz outfits alone have outspent Barnette's campaign (she's had no outside help until this week) by a margin of more than 328-to-1. 

It's also another marquee race where the Club is breaking from former President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Oz. The Club's preferred candidate in Ohio's recent Senate race, former Treasurer Josh Mandel, lost to author J.D. Vance, Trump's pick. But the two were aligned in Tuesday's West Virginia primary, backing Rep. Alex Mooney over Rep. David McKinley. 

Former hedge fund manager David McCormick would rather not get into how he plans to win Pennsylvania's GOP Senate primary next week without former President Donald Trump's support. 

McCormick is trying to win over Republican voters ahead of the May 17 contest, while Trump has endorsed celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz in the race. 

Asked after a campaign event in Tunkhannoc, Pa., how he plans to win without Trump, McCormick responded, "Listen, I'm not doing any more interviews." 

The dodge underscores the challenge McCormick faces in trying to win over the Trump faithful without the former president's backing. On Monday McCormick launched a new TV ad featuring footage of Trump praising McCormick and images of Trump and McCormick together. 

On Tuesday Ozreleased his own ad rebutting McCormick's spot, featuring footage of Trump calling McCormick "a liberal Wall Street Republican." 

For more coverage of Pennsylvania's Senate race, tune into Meet the Press Daily's special report from the Keystone State at 1 pm E.T on MSNBC.