The Democratic National Committee ended November with $20 million in cash on hand, roughly double what the Republican National Committee reported having in the bank during the same period, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

A year out from Election Day, most RNC members are playing down the national party’s cash disparity, even though the GOP traditionally has millions more in the bank at this point in the cycle. They say that Democrats’ control of the White House and the Senate gives the other party a clear advantage in the fundraising department at this stage, and many large-dollar Republican donors are still squarely focused on boosting their preferred Republican presidential and down-ballot candidates.

Once Republicans pick their presidential nominee, they argue, the money will start flowing into the RNC’s coffers. “My guess is the angst against Biden is so powerful, people are going to be digging deep,” says California’s RNC committeeman Shawn Steel.

Still, there’s a broad consensus among Republicans that ending November with roughly $10 million on hand is hardly ideal.

“I certainly wish that the large donors would show up early,” says Virginia GOP Chairman Rich Anderson, who predicts fundraising will be a major discussion topic at next month’s RNC winter meeting in Las Vegas. “There’s a strategic advantage to be accrued to the party who is able to do a lot of its work up front.”

“The RNC will have enough money to compete in 2024,” says Republican strategist Dave Kochel. “But this is not a great sign along the way.”

Pressed on the committee’s latest cash-on-hand figure, an RNC spokeswoman said the party is investing early in minority community centers, staffing up in battleground states, and spending lots of cash on 72 “election-integrity lawsuits” in 20 states. The RNC has also poured resources into its “Bank Your Vote” initiative to help the party better compete with Democrats’ early and absentee vote advantage.

“Democrats are lighting money on fire with tone-deaf ads that are failing to cover for Biden’s record of failure or boost his abysmal approval ratings,” says RNC spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “By the time they decide to actually talk to voters, it will be too little, too late.”

But November’s fundraising numbers still come at an awkward moment for the committee. The GOP’s 2024 front-runner, former president Donald Trump, declined to participate in all four RNC-sponsored presidential primary debates. And during the third presidential debate, ex-pharmaceutical CEO and GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy humiliated RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel when he called for her resignation on live television, laying blame directly on her for the party’s repeated losses in recent presidential, midterm, and off-year election cycles.

Mississippi’s RNC committeeman Henry Barbour says any intra-party criticism of McDaniel’s leadership completely misses the point. The biggest threat the RNC faces, he argues, is another election with Trump at the top of the ticket.

“If the election is about Biden’s miserable record, it won’t matter if we have $12 cash on hand, we will win,” Barbour tells National Review. “But for that to happen, Republican voters have to go with a new candidate, because if we nominate Donald Trump, the election is going to be all about Donald Trump. And we can have a billion dollars in cash on hand and lose just like we did the last few cycles.”