See Party Indepedent Spending Soars. From the press release:

The political parties played a remarkably important role in the 2004 election, despite the fears of some party officials that the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act’s ban on soft money would leave them without enough money. According to CFI’s Executive Director, Michael J. Malbin: “it looks as if early fears that BCRA would mean death for the parties, were highly exaggerated. The parties are alive and quite well.”
One of the parties’ major techniques was to spend money independently of their candidates in unlimited amounts. The Supreme Court reaffirmed the parties’ right to do this when it overturned one of BCRA’s provisions in the 2003 case of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission that otherwise upheld most of the new law. This spending by separate party staff is in addition to the limited money parties may spend in full coordination with candidates. All of the party money — coordinated, independent and generic — is funded by hard money raised under contribution limits specified in BCRA.

House Winners Average $1 Million for First Time; Senate Winners Up 47%. From the press release:

For the first time in history, it took an average of more than $1 million to win a seat in the House of Representatives in 2004. As of October 13, the eventual winners raised an average of $1,024,354. This was 18% more than the winners of 2002 (see Table 1.) (The figures used in this release, for all years, are based on final pre-election reports).
The increase in Senate fundraising was even more dramatic. The $6.5 million that the average winner raised was 47% more than the winners of 2002 and 57% more than the last time the same seats were up for election in 1998 (see Table 2).