Club for Growth and AFP v. Trump

Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses campaign finance.

Josh Kraushaar at Axios:

A pair of libertarian-minded Republican groups — Americans For Prosperity and the Club for Growth — are planning to pour millions into the presidential campaign to stop former President Trump from winning the GOP nomination.

Why it matters: The battle for the Republican Party's future is a clash between the interests of its big donors and grassroots voters. The donors are overwhelmingly looking for a Trump alternative in 2024, but Trump still maintains a strong hold on much of the populist base he empowered in 2016.

• Conservative donors tend to support free trade, changes to Social Security and Medicare, and a less restrictive immigration policy. In 2016, Trump stood out by rejecting such conservative orthodoxy — and sounding an anti-war pitch.

Driving the news: Americans For Prosperity, the conservative political network founded by the billionaire Koch brothers, has said it will back a specific Republican candidate by the end of the summer.

• The anti-tax Club for Growth, which has close ties to several potential presidential candidates, is less likely to coalesce behind one candidate.
• The club has invited six prospective GOP candidates— Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — to its donor summit in Florida next month. Trump isn't invited.
• On the eve of Trump's 2024 campaign launch, the club commissioned polling that indicated he would be vulnerable against DeSantis in a one-on-one presidential matchup.

Freedom Caucus and Club for Growth

Rachel Bade reports at Politico:

Rumor swirls that Freedom Caucus & Club for Growth are in cahoots. We’ve been hearing for a while that some lawmakers and political operatives aligned with House GOP leadership are growing increasingly concerned that the powerful conservative outside group Club for Growth is taking marching orders from their arch-nemesis: The House Freedom Caucus. So, yours truly went to track this rumor down.

What we found was that it’s pretty obvious why they believed there was some unholy coordination going on: 1.) All Club-backed House contenders this year are members of, or endorsed by, the Freedom Caucus. 2.) The Club's super PAC has spent $3.7 million to boost a half-dozen Republican primary candidates who've pledged publicly or privately to join the Freedom Caucus 3.) Some of the candidates' policy positions are at odds with some of the Club's positions, raising eyebrows among its detractors. 4.) And one operative told us they heard it from the horse’s mouth directly. http://politi.co/2bSfeTd
...
Don’t miss Rep. Lynn Westmoreland’s (R-Ga.) pretty scathing quote: "I was a Club-endorsed candidate when I first ran for Congress. I had to go through a very thorough interview by a committee of Club members at their office ... to make sure I agreed with their issues. Now I'm told that the Club is taking a different approach. Now all a candidate has to do is be endorsed by the House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan. The Club is spending their members' money on candidates that don't necessarily line up with their core principles on immigration or free trade. I don't understand the coordination and I would think it would be a surprise to Club members."

Club for Growth v. Trump

The Washington Examiner reports:

Months after running a million-dollar anti-Donald Trump ad blitz in Iowa, the conservative super PAC, Club for Growth, is at it again. This time in South Carolina.

The free-market advocacy group previously ran a series of negative TV ads against the Democratic billionaire-turned-Republican presidential hopeful in the earliest voting state, highlighting his close ties with the Clintons over the years. Trump is now fresh off a victory in New Hampshire and is heading into South Carolina, where the club hopes to diminish some of his momentum and prevent him from securing two consecutive victories.

Beginning Saturday, the group will air a 30-second ad against Trump in South Carolina on broadcast, cable and satellite television, and on various digital platforms. According to David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth Action, the total ad blitz is costing the PAC $1.5 million and will air until South Carolina's Feb. 20 primary. The ad seeks to highlight Trump's record of embracing big government policies and his own business failures over the years.

 

Conservative Bucks Against Huck

Russ Choma writes at Open Secrets:

As for Huckabee’s pledge to raise his funds from regular Americans making small donations, there’s both good news and bad news for him on that front. Although the total number of donors to federal candidates and political committees is declining (even as the cost of elections continues to rise) and larger donors seem to be growing more important, there are nevertheless strong networks of conservative grassroots donors. Organizations like Club for Growth and Senate Conservatives Fund have been raising large sums, both from large donors to their super PACs and from vast numbers of donors who contribute small amounts that the groups then pass on to candidates they support.

In 2014, Club For Growth’s PAC raised $2.8 million from individual donors to its PAC and passed $2.2 million onto candidates in the last cycle. That same cycle, Club For Growth’s super PAC raised $9.3 million, albeit from a much smaller number of donors, many of whom rank high in the ranks of the .01 percent of American political contributors — like hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, who donated $1.1 million to the group. The super PAC spent those millions on ads supporting Republican candidates like Chris McDaniel who were running to the right of the GOP establishment.

The bad news, for Huckabee, is that as vibrant as those outside-the-establishment conservative groups and their networks of smaller donors are, they are unlikely to be available to Huckabee. Club For Growth’s super PAC spent $100,000 on television ads attacking him on his first day as a candidate for raising taxes when he was governor of Arkansas.

Looking Back on This Week's Primaries

Alexander Burns writes at Politico about what happened after Cochran lost his first round:

Back in Washington, Cochran’s most important allies resolved to muffle their anxiety and stick with him for another three weeks. The Chamber of Commerce polled the race, concluded the senator had a difficult but viable path to victory; the group began brainstorming inventive ways to make a splash in the state, culminating with a sensational commercial starring NFL legend Brett Favre. National Republican Senatorial Committee political director Ward Baker, confronted with Beltway pessimism about Cochran’s chances, repeatedly told Republicans in D.C.: “We don’t leave our people on the field.”

Within a week, a powerful operation had swung into motion to save the 76-year-old legislator. Rather than making peace with his firebrand challenger, state and national Republicans redoubled their efforts to tear down Chris McDaniel, whom they considered a political lightweight taking advantage of a virulently anti-Washington mood. In interviews on the day and night of the runoff vote, strategists and party leaders described the campaign as a near-perfect turnaround – considering the slimness of Cochran’s victory, it had to be.

By the time the second round of balloting rolled around on June 24, a collection of groups that might be dubbed the Emergency Committee for Mississippi had spent millions on new television ads, knocked on tens of thousands of doors and reached out to voters – including African-Americans and Democrats – who had likely never voted before in a GOP primary.

Nate Cohn writes at The New York Times:

Turnout hadn’t increased in a Senate runoff primary election in 30 years until Tuesday night, when a momentous surge of voters allowed Senator Thad Cochran to defeat Chris McDaniel, a Tea Party-backed state senator, in Mississippi’s Republican Senate runoff.

Overall turnout has surpassed that from the initial primary by 14 percent, or 45,465 votes, so far. In that contest, Mr. McDaniel edged Mr. Cochran but fell short of the 50 percent necessary to avoid a runoff. Turnout increased by 15.9 percent in the counties that reported 100 percent of their precincts.

The increase in turnout was generally to the benefit of Mr. Cochran. Turnout increased by 34 percent in the counties where Mr. Cochran was strongest and won at least 62 percent of the vote. But turnout also increased by 18 percent in counties where Mr. McDaniel was strong.

Sam R. Hall writes at The Clarion-Ledger:

In the primary, Cochran and his supporters made the race as much about McDaniel as anything. They tried to paint McDaniel as an extremist with questionable background who would be a loose cannon in the general election and — if elected — in Washington. They attacked him on the nursing home scandal, called him a trial lawyer and sent clips of his old radio show to voters in the form of a talking card.

In the runoff, the campaign changed their message. They started talking about what Cochran had done for Mississippi. They embraced his legacy of bringing billions of dollars to the state and helping to build schools, roads, bridges, research facilities and countless other projects.

In other words, instead of giving the voters someone to vote against, Cochran gave them someone to vote for.

James Hohmann writes at Politico:

Two-term Rep. James Lankford crushed T.W. Shannon — the former speaker of the state House who was backed by tea party hero Ted Cruz — and avoided a runoff in the special election to succeed the retiring Tom Coburn.

Before being elected to the House in 2010, the 46-year-old Lankford ran the biggest Baptist summer camp in the state. This helped him build an extensive network among the religious right, and they mobilized for him across the state.

Shannon is both an African-American and a member of the Chickasaw Nation, whose gambling interests make it a major, deep-pocketed player in Oklahoma politics. But the Baptists were far more energized than the tribes, and Lankford far outperformed polls that showed him with a slight lead but below the majority needed to avoid a runoff.

Lankford faces no credible Democratic opposition in the fall.

 Karl Rove writes:

 Tuesday's outcomes suggest local tea party groups have more influence than the national groups purporting to speak for them. A network of Mississippi tea party groups made Mr. McDaniel competitive. In Oklahoma, national groups like Club for Growth, Senate Conservative Fund and FreedomWorks could spend and endorse all they wanted, yet local tea party support for Mr. Lankford blunted these inside-the-Beltway groups' impact in the Sooner State.

This has happened a lot this year. Republican incumbents in Kentucky, South Carolina and Texas, and GOP Senate candidates in Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia all avoided or vanquished tea party challengers by keeping close to their state's politics and offering a message that grabbed a significant slice of local tea party support.

Eight of nine GOP House members targeted by the Club for Growth escaped serious opposition and the one who did face serious opposition won 2 to 1. On the flip side, every national tea party group sat out the June 10 Virginia Seventh Congressional District primary. Local tea party groups provided the volunteers and enthusiasm that propelled David Brat to his stunning victory over House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

McDaniel v. Cochran

At Politico, Alexander Burns explains why Chris McDaniel, the conservative challenger to Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran, is the Republican most likely to take out a Senate incumbent in a 2014 primary:

Among the conservative activists challenging incumbent U.S. senators in 2014, McDaniel is the only one to receive the unanimous support of all the powerful outside groups that fuel campaigns on the right. When he announced last October, he won instant endorsements from the Club for Growth, the Senate Conservatives Fund and the Madison project; FreedomWorks and the Tea Party Patriots followed only a little while later.

It didn’t happen by accident.

As early as the start of last summer, McDaniel was reaching out to national conservative groups — including SCF, FreedomWorks and the Club — to ascertain their interest in a challenge to Cochran. The operatives who met with him came away wowed and heard from local activists who had urged McDaniel as early as 2012 to consider a challenge to Cochran.

“We heard he was looking into running for [the] House. We looked into him and heard so many good things about him that we pushed him to run for Senate,” said Daniel Horowitz, a strategist for the Madison Project.

McDaniel’s early outreach paid off handsomely. As of last week, the Club and the SCF had routed approximately $310,000 into McDaniel’s coffers, according to the two groups. (As of Dec. 31, McDaniel reported raising a total of $461,000 for his campaign.) He has hired the same consulting firm, Cold Spark Media, that is advising Kentucky activist Matt Bevin’s primary challenge to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Outside Groups on the Right

Nicholas Confessore reports at The New York Times:

The drop in establishment Republican fund-raising is also empowering other conservative factions, particularly the political and philanthropic network overseen by the libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch. Americans for Prosperity, the free-market advocacy group founded by David Koch, has become by far the biggest single spender on early-campaign issue advertisements against Democratic incumbents. Since October, it has spent more than $23 million, chiefly on attacks against Democrats for supporting Mr. Obama’s health care law.

That spree underscores the shifting balance of power within the party. During the 2012 campaign, Republican leaders counted on Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, the nonprofit arm of Mr. Rove’s group, to soften up Democratic candidates by financing issue ads in the early campaign season. Now that job is falling largely to Americans for Prosperity, which has been critical of Republican leaders’ strategy on issues like the debt ceiling.

“The model that we have been building for the past eight years — a state-based organization with a supportive home office but a permanent infrastructure on the ground, with real troops, and with real support behind it — is one that our supporters believe in,” said Levi Russell, a spokesman for Americans for Prosperity.

Four Republican-leaning groups with close ties to the party’s leadership in Congress — Crossroads and its super PAC affiliate; the Congressional Leadership Fund; and Young Guns Action Fund — raised a combined $7.7 million in 2013. By contrast, four conservative organizations that have battled Republican candidates deemed too moderate or too yielding on spending issues — FreedomWorks, the Club for Growth Action Fund, the Senate Conservatives Fund, and the Tea Party Patriots — raised a total of $20 million in 2013, according to Federal Election Commission reports filed on Friday.

Matea Gold and Dan Keating report at The Washington Post:

Republicans are now far more likely than Democrats to field attacks by independent groups in their primaries. In 2012, super PACs and nonprofit groups reported spending nearly $36 million in GOP congressional primaries, compared with less than $10 million in congressional Democratic primaries, according to a Washington Post analysis of campaign finance records.

A similar dynamic played out in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, when the contenders were pummeled by super PACs aligned with their rivals. This year, the attacks by the GOP’s tea party flank are spurring a financial arms race, as major ­center-right groups and business organizations step forward to bolster incumbents — an indication that the 2014 primary battles could be bloodier than past cycles.

“Right now, the Republicans all have their cannons aimed at each other,” said Katon Dawson, a former South Carolina GOP chairman who is heading a new group, the West Main Street Values PAC, to help Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) fend off challenges from four primary opponents, “and the Democrats are getting a free ride.”

The 2014 battle lines are being drawn by powerhouses such as the Club for Growth, which launched a “Primary My Congressman” effort last year to take on centrist Republicans. The organization is already backing challengers to eight-term Rep. Mike Simpson (Idaho) and Sen. Thad Cochran (Miss.) and may engage in more primaries.

The Senate Conservatives Fund, a group started by former senator Jim DeMint that promoted last year’s government shutdown, has rallied behind conservatives taking on McConnell, Cochran and Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.).

In Kentucky, the organization has already devoted nearly $1 million to help Matt Bevin, the conservative candidate challenging McConnell in the primary. More than half of that amount has gone to ads and mailers. A bruising TV spot it ran in the state in November charged that McConnell “helped Barack Obama and Harry Reid fund Obamacare.” The group has also given a large share of its funds directly to Bevin’s campaign.

Medicaid and GOP Governors

At The San Francisco Chronicle, Debra Saunders writes that Republicans are divided over whether governors should expand Medicaid with Obamacare money.

It's a hot issue because Obamacare allows states to expand their pool of eligible Medicaid recipients. For the first three years, Washington promises to pay 100 percent of the freight for new enrollees; later, federal support would shrink to 90 percent. (Washington covers about half the cost of today's pre-ACA enrollees.)

It's as free as free money gets in this country -- nearly $1 trillion over 10 years, which leaves Republican governors with a dilemma. To snatch or to spurn, that is the question.

More than 20 states with a Republican governor or legislature have refused the new Medicaid scheme. Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal lead the pack of GOP guvs who have said no. Jindal said the so-called free Medicaid money "would cost Louisiana taxpayers up to $1.7 billion over the next 10 years and move nearly 250,000 Louisianans from private coverage to Medicaid."

Last week, the Club for Growth called out an Idaho congressman for accepting the endorsement of an industry group that supports Medicaid expansion in Idaho. Club spokesman Barney Keller told me the issue isn't exactly a litmus test, but "anyone who thinks that the feds are going to make good on their promises to pay for the Medicaid expansion" is kidding himself.

This month, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told Fox News that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie could be sorry the Garden State is expanding Medicaid under Obamacare. "I don't think that is going to resonate in the Republican primary," quoth Paul, who himself seems eager to run in 2016.

Christie is in good company. Other GOP governors -- John Kasich of Ohio, Jan Brewer of Arizona and Rick Scott of Florida -- are taking advantage of the Obamacare Medicaid terms.

At The Washington Post, Reid Wilson writes:

When Gov. Chris Christie (R) decided that New Jersey would expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act , he opened the door to health-care coverage for 104,000 of the poorest Garden State residents, a move he said would save the state $227 million this year alone.

But he also may have complicated his hopes of making it through a competitive Republican presidential primary in 2016, when rivals will be looking for any opportunity to distinguish themselves from the rest of the crowded field.

Christie is one of eight Republican governors to accept the expansion, including at least one other potential presidential candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich . The jockeying over Medicaid is a hot topic this week in Phoenix at the Republican Governors Association’s annual meeting, and it is shaping up as one of the earliest fights in the shadow campaign for the Republican nomination.
...
Asked by a reporter in Phoenix whether accepting a Medicaid expansion would make securing the Republican nomination more difficult, Kasich said: “Is that how you’re going to make a decision?

“Anybody who would be making the decision from that standpoint I wouldn’t want to be supporting for president,” Kasich said. “I think all things kind of fade over time.”

Super PACs Go Up Early

Paul Blumenthal writes at The Huffington Post:

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), who faces the Senate's toughest reelection, spent the final days of June shooting campaign video -- for an election still more than 16 months away.

Independent groups spent $1.1 million in 2014 general election Senate campaigns in Arkansas and Kentucky during the first six months of this year, 11 times the $100,000 the groups had spent at this point in 2011.

Despite questions about donor fatigue and notable super PAC bets on losing candidates in 2012, independent group campaign spending is off to the fastest start ever in next year's Senate races, according to campaign finance records. The onslaught of spending is forcing candidates like Pryor to start campaigning earlier than ever, pushing the election calendar farther back and propelling incumbents and their challengers to raise even more money to start their campaigns early.
...
Club for Growth Action, the super PAC of the conservative Club for Growth, was the first group to go up against Pryor with an ad in February telling Arkansas voters, "When you vote for Pryor, you vote for Obama."