Michigan Democrats are locking in more than $10 million in ad reservations in a bid to hold majorities in the state legislature, repeating a successful strategy that helped flipped control in 2022.

The Michigan Democratic Party last week announced $10.5 million in reserved ads to support candidates for the state House elections in November, much of it focused on Michigan’s metro areas.

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The spending includes $2.5 million each in Grand Rapids, Lansing and Detroit markets, $1 million in Marquette, and $900,000 in Flint. The party will also spend $700,000 in the Traverse City and South Bend, Ind. markets. That spending is in addition to nearly $8 million in ads Michigan House Democrats have already reserved in Detroit, The Hill reports.

“You only make an ‘announcement’ like this in April if you are nervous. Not a confident play by the Dems,” state Rep. Bill G. Schuette posted to X. “@MI_Republicans have out-fundraised the Democrats and have more cash-on-hand. We will have the resources and do the work to get our message to voters and win in *203 days*.”

You only make an “announcement” like this in April if you are nervous.

Not a confident play by the Dems@MI_Republicans have out-fundraised the Democrats and have more cash-on-hand.

We will have the resources and do the work to get our message to voters and win in *203 days* pic.twitter.com/p3F5B1VND0

— Bill G. Schuette (@schuette_bill) April 19, 2024

Schuette, named chair of the House Republican Campaign Committee last month, has touted “record fundraising totals” Republicans are using to campaign on “the need to bring balance back to Lansing.”

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“Balance is needed more than ever in Lansing as, under one-party rule, Michigan Democrats have rammed through damaging policy, making life more expensive in our state,” Schuette’s legislative aide Luke Derheim wrote in an email to Midland Daily News. “This is a message we are already seeing be successful in fundraising, candidate recruitment and voter outreach.”

The HRCC has pointed to more than $1 million raised during each quarter of 2023 that gave the party a $642,000 cash advantage over Democrats going into 2024.

The Democratic Party’s ad spending announcement last week follows almost exactly two years after the party used the same strategy of early ad buys to limit Republican air time and secure Democrats’ first trifecta in state government in 40 years.

Matt Grossman, political science professor at Michigan State University, noted in 2022 “both that Democrats are raising and spending more money, and that they have spent it earlier than Republicans,” according to Michigan Public Radio.

That approach worked for both state legislative races and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was boosted by $23 million in ads reserved in May by the Democratic Governors Association.

Grossman pointed to redistricting that made state races more competitive, and how Democrats’ early ad spending leverages that reality for maximum benefit.

“It used to be the case that Republicans had a substantial advantage in terms of winning (state legislative) seats compared to the total statewide votes that were case in both the House and the Senate,” he said. “The redistricting commission eliminated most of that advantage, so that this year it really will be a kind of statewide contest as to … which party has more support statewide.”

In 2022, Democrats topped the nation in ad spending for state races at over $29 million.

By October, Democrats had spent at least $500,000 on 11 different elections, with an overall a spending advantage for state legislative races of $22.4 million to Republicans’ $6.6 million, AdImpact Politics posted to X at the time.