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FILE - In this March 14, 2014, file photo, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus gestures while speaking before the California Republican Party 2014 Spring Convention in Burlingame, Calif. Republicans are trying to convert hard-won gains in statehouses to successes in this November s congressional elections and the 2016 race for the White House, according to a review of their campaign finance reports.

Democrats are spending just as heavily to keep their political machinery humming going into November's elections, which will determine House and Senate control, and ahead of the 2016 presidential contest, according to a review of campaign finance reports.

An Associated Press analysis of the parties' spending since the 2012 presidential campaign suggests Republicans are trying to copy the Democrats' playbook: build strong political operations in crucial states and collect as much voter data as possible.

"We have to make sure that we put together a process and an operation that gives our (presidential) nominee the best possible platform to be successful," Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Tuesday.

"The RNC had become basically a U-Haul trailer of cash that gets hooked up to a nominee for a short period of time and then the national party went away for three years," he said. That approach, Priebus said, has left the GOP out of the White House for two terms.

Cash is starting to be delivered sooner, according to more than 80,000 pages of campaign finance reports that the RNC and Democratic National Committee have filed with the Federal Election Commission since January 2013.

Two years before they choose their next White House nominees, each party is sending millions of dollars to state committees.

Republicans are skipping over liberal strongholds such as Maryland and Vermont, as well as solidly conservative Idaho. Democrats are shipping money to each state affiliate, even the most conservative ones.

Much of the $6 million the RNC has sent to state parties has gone to Ohio, Florida and Michigan, where the GOP has had local success but failed in recent presidential contests.

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Parties spend heavily to help states hire staff