Trump and GOP Committees

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

Melanie Zanona et al. at Punchbowl News:

Vice President Kamala Harris recently transferred $10 million to the DCCC. How much has former President Donald Trump given the NRCC? Not one red cent.

Trump also has yet to appear at a major fundraising event for the NRCC, leaving a huge, eight-figure hole in the committee’s budget. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee hasn’t given to the House GOP’s campaign arm all cycle.

As Republicans have grown increasingly alarmed by their massive cash gap with Democrats, securing a Trump fundraising event has become a top priority for House GOP leaders.

 Senior House Republicans, including NRCC Chair Richard Hudson, have been privately lobbying Trump to speak at an NRCC event, according to multiple GOP sources. So far, they’ve had no luck.

Speaker Mike Johnson was planning to make an overture to Trump at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, we’re told. But that was the day an alleged attempted assassin was caught with a gun on Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Fla.

The Deepfake Election

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the impact of social media and campaign technology.

Eva Surovell at The Messenger:

The National Republican Congressional Committee released new advertisements using images generated by artificial intelligence of national parks "overrun with immigrants."

The advertisements target Democrats who voted last week against legislation that would prevent the use of public lands for temporary housing for immigrants seeking asylum.

 

Oliver Knox at WP:

President Barack Obama warned us in 2018.

Or rather, a digitally manipulated video of Obama, voiced by actor-director Jordan Peele, warned us: “We’re entering an era in which our enemies can make it look like anyone is saying anything at any point in time, even if they would never say those things.”
...

If the Obama video seems a little clunky, consider that it’s five years old, before the latest AI tools, like ChatGPT were household names and available to pretty much anyone with an internet connection.

Back in March, my colleagues Isaac Stanley-Becker and Naomi Nix chronicled how AI-generated images of former president Donald Trump being arrested rocketed around the internet, getting millions of eyeballs.


In April, Isaac and John Wagner reported on the Republican National Committee releasing a 30-second ad built entirely with AI imagery of a dystopian future in which President Biden has been reelected and America is falling apart. (The RNC included a disclosure about AI use.)

Fundraising and the Fall of McCarthy

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses campaign finance. Some state Republican parties have problems.  And now, so do the House Republicans.

As speaker, Kevin McCarthy had effective control of NRCC and the Congressional Leadership Fund. At WP, Michael Scherer reports on what comes next.

CLF, the centerpiece of House Republican efforts, has grown increasingly dependent on just a few donors in recent years, mostly billionaires who are driven to give more for ideological reasons. The group raised at least $88.5 million last cycle from just eight families and millions more from McCarthy’s own California donors. After McCarthy was toppled, the NRCC announced it was postponing a fall gala event next week in Dallas.

“The happiest people in Washington this week are the people at the DCCC and House Majority PAC who just saw the number one fundraiser in the Republican field taken off the field,” said Mike Shields, a McCarthy ally and campaign strategist who previously ran CLF and worked as political director of the NRCC, referring to two pro-Democratic committees.

Groups connected to McCarthy spent millions to defend incumbents against far-right challengers in primaries, sometimes using spending vehicles that were designed to conceal the identity of donors. They also weeded out Republican candidates that they thought did not belong in Washington, even if they could have won office.

McCarthy allies were involved in 2022 in raising money for a group called Results for N.C. that helped to defeat one of McCarthy’s own members, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), after the freshman lawmaker infuriated his colleagues by talking on a podcast about seeing cocaine use in Washington and being invited to sex parties.

Other groups, with names like American Liberty Action and the Eighteen Fifty-Four Fund, were deployed to take out the primary campaigns of Anthony Sabatini, a Florida friend of Rep. Matt Gaetz, and former New York state party chair Carl Paladino, who suggested in a 2021 social media post that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler is “the kind of leader we need today.”

CLF, under the guidance of McCarthy’s team, intervened in a Florida primary to help defeat Laura Loomer, a political activist who has described herself as being “pro-white nationalism” and a “proud Islamophobe.” CLF also spent heavily, through vehicles that were difficult to track, in a failed effort to defend Rep. Jamie Herrera-Beutler (R-Wash.), a supporter of former president Donald Trump’s second impeachment. After she lost, Democrats were able to pick up the seat on the southern Washington state border.

Ohio Throwaway

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

Sometimes parties throw away easily-winnable seats by nominating bad candidates.

Ally Mutnick at Politico:

The House GOP campaign arm is slashing a near-$1 million ad buy meant to target Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) — essentially walking away from what could have been an easy pickup for the party.

The move comes a day after an Associated Press report that Kaptur’s opponent, JR Majewski, lied about his resume, including claiming that he deployed to Afghanistan. Majewski beat out two state legislators in a May primary contest for the northwest Ohio district.

The National Republican Congressional Committee booked $960,000 in the Toledo, Ohio market to help boost Majewski. It cut that buy entirely on Thursday, according to two sources familiar with the committee’s media purchasing.

Kaptur, one of the longest-serving women in the House, was redrawn into a district that President Donald Trump would have carried narrowly, making her one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents. National Republicans were not initially enthused about Majewski’s primary win — he is closely aligned with the MAGA wing of the party and gained fame for painting his lawn into a giant Trump shrine.

But they still booked TV time in the district and were set to begin airing ads to help him next week. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, meanwhile, traveled to the district to campaign with him over the summer.

House Democrats have been heartened that GOP primary voters in several districts have chosen more conservative candidates over moderates who would perhaps have more appeal in a swing seat. Ohio was one example: House Majority PAC, Democrats’ flagship congressional super PAC, and Kaptur have been airing ads hammering Majewski for traveling to D.C. for the Jan. 6 riots and painting him as anti-police.

Midterm Money

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

Shane Goldmacher at NYT:

A dizzying amount of money is already pouring into the battles for the House and the Senate more than a year before the 2022 elections, as Republicans are bullish on their chances to take over both chambers in the first midterm election under President Biden, given the narrow margins keeping Democrats in power.

The two parties’ main war chests for the House total a combined $128 million — more than double the sum at this point in the 2020 cycle and far surpassing every other previous one. Top House members are now raising $1 million or more per quarter. And more than two dozen senators and Senate candidates topped that threshold.

Candidate after candidate, and the parties themselves, are posting record-breaking sums, even as the shapes of most House districts nationwide remain in flux because of delays in the once-a-decade redrawing of boundaries.

In Georgia, Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, raised more than $100,000 per day in the last three months for a $9.5 million haul. But his leading Republican rival, Herschel Walker, the former football player who was urged to run by former President Donald J. Trump, raised $3.7 million in a little more than a month, setting up a potentially bruising and expensive contest in that key state.

...

The country’s increasingly polarized electorate has been hyper-engaged in politics since the Trump era began, and the ease of channeling that energy into donations online is remaking how campaigns are funded. The online donation clearinghouses for the two parties, ActBlue and WinRed, processed a combined total of more than $450 million in the third quarter.

 

The NRCC has a message for Trump supporters: "You're a traitor," it begins. "Was Trump wrong about you?"

The fundraising text orders recipients to "prove your loyalty" by sending money or "be branded a deserter."https://t.co/445GoBm9Gm

— National File (@NationalFile) October 14, 2021

House Republicans in Deep Denial

 Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. It also discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. 

At WP, Michael Scherer,Josh Dawsey and Dan Lamothe report on Liz Cheney's reaction to a survey briefing at an April party retreat.

When staff from the National Republican Congressional Committee rose to explain the party’s latest polling in core battleground districts, they left out a key finding about Trump’s weakness, declining to divulge the information even when directly questioned about Trump’s support by a member of Congress, according to two people familiar with what transpired.

Trump’s unfavorable ratings were 15 points higher than his favorable ones in the core districts, according to the full polling results, which were later obtained by The Washington Post. Nearly twice as many voters had a strongly unfavorable view of the former president as had a strongly favorable one.

Cheney was alarmed, she later told others, in part because Republican campaign officials had also left out bad Trump polling news at a March retreat for ranking committee chairs. Both instances, she concluded, demonstrated that party leadership was willing to hide information from their own members to avoid the truth about Trump and the possible damage he could do to Republican House members, even though the NRCC denied any such agenda.

Those behind-the-scenes episodes were part of a months-long dispute over Republican principles that has raged among House leaders and across the broader GOP landscape. That dispute is expected to culminate next week with a vote to remove Cheney from her position as the third-ranking House Republican.

NRCC Fundraising Trick

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

 In 2020, Trump scammed contributors by tricking them into multiple donations that they never intended. At The Bulwark, Tim Miller dissects a sleazy NRCC fundraising email:

Here, the NRCC now claims that it will match the contribution “5x.” Think about that for a moment: The NRCC says that if you give them $1, they’ll add another $5. But if you don’t give them a dollar, what are they going to with their $5? So this is a lie, too (a common one in political fundraising.)

But let’s keep going.

Next up we’re presented with two boxes that are pre-checked. The first makes the donation monthly recurring—the same gimmick that the Times exposed the Trump campaign for running to disastrous results. The second pre-checked box doubles your donation in order to grant you “Trump Patriot Status.”

And if you can believe it, there’s an even worse version of this running on the NRCC’s fundraising page, where they threaten to tell Trump that the reader is a “DEFECTOR” if they uncheck the box for recurring donations:

I’m sure there’s some formal legal difference between the NRCC tricking someone into signing up for a nonexistent social media site—and then having a default box opting them in to both double their pledged amount and make it recurring—and the criminal advance-fee scams made famous by the imaginary Nigerian princes.

But as a moral matter, the difference is awfully hard to suss out.

Trump v. Rove, Cheney, WSJ, and Others

Our forthcoming book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties.

The state of the GOP is not good.

 

INBOX: A statement from the former president of the United States about Karl Rove: pic.twitter.com/9D7pG0JLj7

— Darren Samuelsohn (@dsamuelsohn) March 5, 2021

Politico Playbook:

Sources tell Playbook that McCarthy has been trying to persuade Trump not to seek revenge against 10 Republicans who voted to impeach the former president — members who could be critical to McCarthy’s bid to retake the House and become speaker.

Not only has Trump refused to commit, he has publicly repeated his vow to primary those incumbents.

That’s not all. Trump and his new campaign team are also cracking down on the use of the president’s name for fundraising — a huge draw attracting small-dollar donors. Three sources told us that Trump, who made his fortune licensing his name, has felt burned and “abused” by the GOP bandying about his name to haul in money.

His team has conveyed that any Republican or GOP committee seeking to use it needs explicit approval, according to five sources familiar with the situation. One Trump adviser said they’ve been sending out cease-and-desists to faux PACs using Trump’s name to fundraise, among other demands to knock it off.

In his CPAC speech last weekend, Trump reinforced the point by directing all fundraising to his own campaign entities. He told attendees “there’s only one way” to donate to Trump Republicans: through his own Save America PAC.

That move came around the same time that McCarthy’s own reelection campaign took down a website called Trumps-Majority.com, a landing page for donations that appeared to go live around the time McCarthy met with Trump in Florida. McCarthy’s office said the website, which was used in 2020, went up by mistake. The McCarthy and Trump camps denied that its removal had anything to do with Trump’s concern about how his name is being used.

Still, the situation highlights an awkward two-step between the House GOP (particularly McCarthy) and Trump. They need the ex-president to raise gobs of money from and turn out the base. But any cash collected off the Trump name would also be used to protect some of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him — members like California Rep. DAVID VALADAO, a McCarthy ally who’s in a difficult reelection.

Setting aside Trump’s appetite for revenge against those members, even some House Republicans aren’t even comfortable with McCarthy & Co.’s Trump entreaties. At a private meeting in February, Rep. TOM RICE (R-S.C.), one of the pro-impeachment Republicans, said the conference shouldn’t be using the ex-president at all in its effort to retake the House, according to people in the room.

Caught in the middle is McCarthy, who is notorious for trying to please everybody. McCarthy has made no secret of his belief that the House GOP needs Trump in 2022. But placating a president who doesn’t hear nuance when it comes to his detractors is not going to be easy for “My Kevin.”

SPOTTED: CATALINA LAUF, a pro-Trump Republican primarying Rep. ADAM KINZINGER (R-Ill.) in 2022, at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday evening, in the latest sign that Trump is serious about primarying his House GOP antagonists.

House Elections

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race.   Our next book, title TBA, discusses the 2020 results.

David Wasserman at Cook Political Report:

In 2018, Democrats ran up the score by recruiting political outsiders, especially women with national security backgrounds, to challenge GOP "insiders." And, they won. Meanwhile, of the 29 House Republican freshmen from 2018, only one wasn't a man and only one wasn't white. But Republicans turned the tables in 2020, and it worked.

Of the 13 Republicans who flipped Democratic-held seats in 2020, all were women and/or minorities. Three are of Cuban ancestry, two were born in South Korea and one was born in Ukraine — allowing them to personalize an anti-socialism message. It helped that these candidates didn't look like Trump or GOP leaders, and many (though not all) sounded quite different from Trump too.

All cycle, the NRCC, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY-21) worked local trenches to clear fields for these recruits and, if necessary, help them get through tough primaries. In the end, women and minorities helped Republicans win six districts Trump failed to carry. 

Wasserman at Cook:

26. Democrats would likely have lost their House majority in 2020 had it not been for lawsuits that overturned GOP-drawn congressional maps prior to 2016 (Florida and Virginia), 2018 (Pennsylvania) and 2020 (North Carolina). The new, court-ordered maps gave Democrats approximately ten more seats than they would have won under the old lines — roughly double Democrats' new House edge.

27. According to FiveThirtyEight's Nathaniel Rakich, there have only been three federal elections in the last century decided by less than 20 votes. This year alone, there may be two such races: Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks was certified as the winner in Iowa's 2nd CD by six votes, and Republican Claudia Tenney currently holds a lead of 11 votes in New York's 22nd CD.

28. There will be at most 17 congressional districts that split their tickets between the presidential and congressional ballots, the fewest in the past century (there were 35 such districts in 2016 and 83 in 2008).

29. The biggest overperformance of the top of the ticket by a House Democrat was by Rep. Collin Peterson (MN-07), who lost by only 13.6 points despite Biden losing his district by 29.4 points. The biggest overperformance of the top of the ticket by a House Republican was by Rep. John Curtis (UT-03), who won by 41.9 points while Trump won his district by just 25.1 points.

30. The biggest underperformance of the top of the ticket by a House Democrat was by Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-05), who won by 38.5 points as Biden won the district by 55 points. The biggest underperformance of the top of the ticket by a House Republican was by Rep. Jim Hagedorn (MN-01), who won by 3.1 points as Trump carried the district by 10.1 points.

Greg Giroux at Bloomberg Government:

Kim and Steel will be the only Republican women in the California delegation and are two of the first three Korean-American women ever elected to Congress. They targeted their districts’ large Asian-American constituencies — mostly Chinese, Korean, and Filipino in the 39th, and largely Vietnamese in the 48th.

“Even in a polarized political climate, good candidates with a strong message can win anywhere,” said Sam Oh, vice president of the Republican digital firm Targeted Victory, who was general consultant to the Steel and Kim campaigns. “Michelle Steel and Young Kim are dynamic candidates with deep roots in their communities and with proven records of getting things done and being bipartisan.”

House GOP pickups:#CA21 David Valadao#CA39 Young Kim#CA48 Michelle Park Steel#FL26 Carlos Gimenez#FL27 Maria Elvira Salazar#IA01 Ashley Hinson#MN07 Michelle Fischbach#NM02 Yvette Herrell#NY11 Nicole Malliotakis#OK05 Stephanie Bice#SC01 Nancy Mace#UT04 Burgess Owens

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 21, 2020

This is the closest House election since #IN08's four vote Dem win in 1984. It's also Republicans' 13th pickup of a Dem seat so far (all pickups by GOP women/minorities), and Dems are slated to drop from three seats to just one in Iowa.

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) December 2, 2020

Brindisi takes the unofficial lead w/ more Oneida Co. ballots reviewed, but still a long way to go in #NY22. https://t.co/QrZkpJUVbW

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) December 23, 2020

NRCC Recruitment: The Iron Law of Emulation

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race.   Our next book, title TBA, discusses the 2020 results.

House Republicans did a strong job of recruitment.

Li Zhou at Vox:

There’s also a historic number of women of color who’ve been elected to Congress: According to CAWP, newly elected Black women, Latina women, and Asian American and Pacific Islander women all broke records in the House. Some outlets have also noted that Rep. Yvette Herrell — a member of the Cherokee Nation — adds to the number of Native American women in Congress as well, though Herrell has told CAWP that she identifies as white

...

Republican wins this year stood out, especially after the number of GOP women in the House dipped dramatically in 2018. That year, the ranks of Republican women in the lower chamber went from 23 to 13, while Democrats’ grew from 64 to 89. (Republicans will have at least 27 in the new term.)

At the time, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said that Republicans had reached a “crisis level” of women in the House.

That “crisis” has since spurred more GOP groups — including Stefanik’s Elevate PAC — to boost women candidates, particularly at the primary level where there hasn’t historically been as much support. On the Democratic side, Emily’s List has been integral to backing candidates at the primary stage of the race, and Republican organizations are increasingly working to replicate that model.

This year, that effort ramped up, according to Kodiak Hill-Davis, a founder and political director of Republican Women for Progress, a group dedicated to providing training for GOP candidates. “Without getting these women through the primaries, you can’t get them through the general election,” she told Vox.

A growing number of organizations — including Winning for Women, VIEW Pac, and E-PAC — are among those dedicated to this effort, which includes financial investment and endorsements that highlight women candidates. “In addition to any funding they’ve been able to provide, they also send a signal,” [Rutgers politicsl scientist Kelly] Dittmar said.

In 2019, Bridget Bowman reported at Roll Call:

Indiana Rep. Susan W. Brooks made a point of telling her Republican colleagues this week about several new candidates who are women and people of color.

“It’s important that we, as a conference, do a better job of looking like America, and better representing the very diverse country that we have,” Brooks, the National Republican Congressional Committee’s recruitment chair, told Roll Call after Tuesday’s meeting of the GOP conference.

Brooks said she told lawmakers it was important to recruit a diverse group of challengers for the 2020 election following devastating losses in 2018. She said she is well aware that just 13 of the 197 House Republicans are women and just nine are not white.

In February of this year, Brooks wrote:

That plan started with changing the way our Party recruited candidates.  With help from my fellow Members of Congress serving as Recruitment Captains, we went out looking for candidates who uniquely fit their district, reflect the diversity of America, and can win competitive races.  We didn’t stop because one person announced they were running.  We kept looking for the best candidates in these districts to win in November.  Our Recruitment Captains prioritized creating a Republican conference that better reflects our diverse national Republican Party.

...

With support from Chairman Tom Emmer and others like Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, whose leadership PAC, Elevate-PAC, is designed to help elect Republican women, we are putting ourselves in a position to elect more Republican women to the House of Representatives.  A record 200 women have filed to run for the House this cycle which demolishes the previous record.

Danielle Kurtzleben at NPR:

Stefanik has become the face of efforts to boost Republican women in Congress. She was in charge of recruitment for House Republicans in 2018, an abysmal year for GOP women. Among the 13 women elected to the House from the Republican Party in the midterms, there was just one nonincumbent candidate.

After that, Stefanik clashed with National Republican Congressional Committee chair Tom Emmer over whether the party should do more to boost women in primaries. Emmer told a reporter that would be a "mistake." Stefanik, for her part, focused her energy on building up her leadership PAC, E-PAC.

Her committee promoted more than two dozen candidates and gave $415,000 to Republican women, including Fischbach.

Stefanik credits the candidates with their wins, but she also feels that she played a key role.

"What I believe is different this cycle is I publicly made this a priority for the Republicans I served with in Congress," Stefanik said. "I very publicly said at the end of the midterms in 2018 that we needed to do better."

 

 

House GOP's Pretty Good Election

 

 In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race.   Our next book, title TBA, discusses the 2020 results.

From NRCC: 

Republicans won 28 of the 29 most competitive House races as projected by Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight.

From Day One of this cycle, Chairman Emmer made it a priority to recruit the most diverse slateof candidates ever, and now, Republicans are welcoming a record-breaking new member class.Every House Republican candidate who flipped a Democrat-held seat is a woman, a minority,and/or a veteran.Thus far, 13 new Republican women are joining the House Republican Conference next year –breaking the record of nine new women set in 2010. Moreover, six new minorities and 11 newveterans will join House Republicans.Chairman Emmer also established from the outset of this cycle that this election would be achoice between Republicans’ message of freedom versus Democrats’ radical socialist agenda.The results speak for themselves as Democrats failed to have an answer for their socialist agenda. Soon-to-be former Congresswomen Donna Shalala and Debbie Mucarsel-Powellspecifically cited the NRCC’s message tying them to socialism as the reason they lost.

Ally Mutnick at Politico:

But the most shocking results available thus far make it clear that Trump did far better than polling indicated he would in many suburban battlegrounds, and in others Republican congressional candidates may have benefited from ticket-splitters. Overall, it looks like 2018 was a high-water mark for Democrats — a wave that crested and fell.

Democrats' unexpected losses ranged from districts in Florida and Texas where sliding Latino support proved costly, blue-trending suburbs where affluent voters split their tickets and rural seats in which Trump's GOP roared back last week. In the end, Democrats could end up losing around 10 seats, depending on the final counts in the more than a dozen races yet to be resolved.

 

NRCC Loses in the Triage Tent

In Defying the Odds, we discuss congressional elections as well as the presidential race. 

In this year's political triage, the GOP is focusing on the Senate.

Sorry, House Republicans, you get to bleed out on the gurney.

Rachael Bade, Josh Dawsey and Michelle Ye Hee Lee at WP:

Senior House Republicans are pleading with the deep-pocketed Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign to provide financial help as Democrats vastly outraise the GOP, but top campaign officials are so far declining to commit.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has been prodding the RNC to write a check to the National Republican Congressional Committee — a request he has made multiple times. McCarthy specifically has asked Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, to make a financial commitment to the House GOP, according to several officials familiar with the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely describe private conversations.

But Kushner, who oversees such decisions and has a greater say than RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, has refused thus far, the officials say. While the Trump campaign and the RNC have brought in record amounts of money, some Trump officials see donating to the House as a wasteful investment as the GOP’s chances of reclaiming the majority sharply deteriorate. Their decline in fortunes can largely be attributed to Trump’s sagging support over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the sliding economy.

 “The campaign just wants the money. . . . They don’t care about the House — it’s not their concern,” one official close with the Trump campaign said. “When you’ve been working in politics for years, and you understand it’s a team sport, you kind of look at these things a little differently. I don’t think they see it that way.”

The Widening Gyre

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race.

Paul Kane and  Colby Itkowitz at WP:

Republican leaders stood by the upset winner of the GOP primary in a competitive House seat despite the gun rights activist’s openness to the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, overseen by top GOP leaders, embraced Lauren Boebert as their nominee Wednesday following her defeat of five-term Rep. Scott R. Tipton (R-Colo.), whom she characterized during the campaign as insufficiently supportive of President Trump.

“Lauren won her primary fair and square and has our support. This is a Republican seat and will remain a Republican seat as Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats continue to peddle their radical conspiracy theories and pushing their radical cancel culture,” Rep. Tom Emmer (Minn.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement.

Boebert is the ninth individual to win the Republican nomination for a seat in the House or Senate who is either a full supporter of the QAnon movement or has voiced support for some of its tenets, none of which have a foundation in truth. Conspiracy theory experts consider it a webbed network filled with activists who wrongly believe a secret group of elites inside of and outside of government is working against Trump, as well as other false allegations of pedophilia among top Democratic officials.

Media Matters lists the QAnon candidates. 

Philip Bump at WP:

The thing that’s remarkable about these Q-adjacent candidates (nearly all of whom are Republican) is that many of them have gone on to win. A Post review of the outcomes of the races in which those 59 candidates have actually been on the ballot and received votes show that 11 of 28 candidates either won their primaries, advanced to a runoff or will be on the ballot in November.

In total, candidates who’ve shown support for QAnon have received more than 580,000 votes, as of this writing, including more than 425,000 votes that have gone to Republicans who were more actively engaged in the Q movement than simply using a Q hashtag on a tweet. This isn’t a sign that those voters were all demonstrating support for Q. It is a sign, though, that Q was not seen disqualifying for Republican primary voters.

Most of those successful candidates won’t end up in Washington next January. A number won primary contests against incumbent Democrats in heavily blue districts. It seems likely at the moment, though, that at least two — Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who won the party primary in Georgia’s 14th District — will be elected.

The sudden emergence of a possible Q caucus, if you will, itself mirrors Trump’s ascent. QAnon and the president took similar paths to political power.

You’re probably more familiar with Trump’s. Written off in 2015 as a lark, Trump perhaps accidentally stumbled on a successful path to the Republican nomination: say the things that the party elites didn’t want said but which were burbling in conservative media and social media.

For the record, I don’t think Trump is sharp enough to understand any of this. I don’t think he can wrap his head around actual ideology, sub-groups, or anything beyond what he wants.

That he has people around him who communicate to dangerous fringe groups should worry everyone.

— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) June 30, 2020

GOP Tong Warfare in Georgia Senate Race

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional elections as well as the presidential race. The update looks at political and demographic trends through the 2018 midterm.  Our next book will explain 2020.

In January, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp appointed wealthy Kelly Loeffler to fill the vacancy of Senator Johnny Isaakson, who resigned because of ill health.  But Rep. Doug Collins, a zealous defender of Trump on the Judiciary Committee, wanted the job, and Trumpworld supported him  He is now challenging her in the November 3 special election, which will trigger a January 3 runoff if nobody wins a majority. At WP, Paul Kane reports on the resulting warfare:

After years of producing hamstrung nominees from contested primaries, the National Republican Senatorial Committee announced in 2013 that it would not allow any dollars to go toward firms that worked for GOP challengers to incumbents. Only one GOP incumbent has lost a primary challenge since then.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has no such rule, so consultants for Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) face no blowback in his challenge to Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.).\

McConnell’s team offers no apology for its tactics. Its blacklist policy is well-known to every Republican consulting firm, as is its well-honed image of being willing to be the toughest kid in the political sandbox.

“With this emotional, ill-informed decision, Doug Collins has united conservatives in opposition to his candidacy, and Senator Loeffler has quickly assembled more Republican support in Georgia than Collins ever knew existed,” said NRSC spokesman Jesse Hunt, calling the four-term congressman “a swamp creature."

...
 Soon after Isakson announced his retirement plans in August, Collins began considering the Senate race. In early October, his campaign paid almost $30,000 to John McLaughlin, a well-known Republican pollster. With impeachment looming, Collins signed Convergence Media onto his House campaign account to boost his online fundraising presence.

Convergence has close ties to Kevin McCarthy and is on retainer to NRCC,.

The three GOP leaders — McConnell, [Kevin] McCarthy and [RNC Chair Ronna Romney] McDaniel — never spoke to one another about the feud, according to their advisers. But the messages were sent at the highest staff levels.

NRSC officials complained to top advisers of McDaniel, who employs Shields’s wife, Katie Walsh, as a consultant. And McConnell’s world made their displeasure clear to McCarthy’s orbit.

 ...In a roughly 10-day span after Collins entered the race, Convergence Media declined to work on his Senate race, followed by a direct-mail firm and John McLaughlin, the GOP pollster.

The same D.C. establishment political swamp that tried to stop President Trump is trying to stop me now!

Don't let them win: https://t.co/gr1VS9mnEN pic.twitter.com/EaXGKNItgJ

— Doug Collins (@CollinsforGA) February 14, 2020

House GOP Lags in Fundraising

In Defying the Odds, we discuss campaign finance and campaign technology. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

Jake Sherman at Politico:

House Republican leaders privately conceded in a closed meeting Tuesday morning that they are in the midst of a full-blown fundraising crisis, which would imperil any chance they have at regaining their majority in 2020.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) put it bluntly: "They are kicking our ass," he said, in a meeting at the Capitol Hill Club, the private GOP haunt around the corner from the Capitol, referring to Democrats.

Indeed, McCarthy is right. The DCCC outraised the NRCC by $40 million in 2019, and individual Democratic candidates are besting their GOP opponents at an alarming rate. Democrats currently hold a 35-seat majority in the House, and there are five vacancies. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a House GOP-aligned super PAC, raised $32.6 million in 2019, and has a $28-million cash stash.

The disparity is even more shocking because the NRCC had a record off-year fundraising haul, but the DCCC has proven much more prolific.

House Fundraising: Advantage D

In Defying the Odds, we discuss campaign finance and campaign technology. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

Sarah Ewall-Rice at CBS:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the group that works to elect Democrats to Congress, is touting a fundraising advantage and expanding its battleground map after learning it outraised its GOP counterparts by $40 million in 2019.

The DCCC announced this week it raised $125 million last year, roughly $20 more than it raised in 2017, the last off year between elections. The fundraising was fueled by $59.6 million in grassroots contributions. At the same time, the 42 Democratic "frontline" members in competitive races raked in more than $91 million in 2019.

"We know that this gives them a huge tactical advantage in their districts because they can buy TV time at a significantly lower rate than the committee, than outside groups, than anyone else," said DCCC political director Kory Kozloski in a call with reporters. "They're going to have the resources to tell their stories in a significant way, in a way that incumbents have never had before, in a way that Democratic candidates in many cases have never had before."

Earlier this week, the National Republican Congressional Committee chair Tom Emmer revealed his committee raised $85 million in 2019, $40 million less than the DCCC. Emmer raised alarm bells to Republicans as they seek to take back the House in 2020.

2020 House Elections: Advantage D

In Defying the Odds, we discuss congressional elections as well as the presidential race.  The update  -- recently published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.
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Scott Wong and Juliegrace Brufke at The Hill:

The 2020 election is more than a year away, but some Republican lawmakers are pessimistic about their chances of winning back the House.

President Trump’s approval ratings in key swing states are under water. Infighting on the GOP leadership team and a notable retirement [Susan Brooks of Indiana, in charge of NRCC recruitment] have raised questions about the party’s campaign strategy.

And Republicans acknowledge that many of the at-risk Democratic freshmen in Trump districts are going to be difficult to beat as they resist calls for impeachment and stay focused on kitchen-table issues such as health care and infrastructure.

“It’s going to be tough. [The Democrats] have really good majority-makers — [Reps.] Abigail Spanberger, Dean Phillips, Max Rose. They’ve got some good members that know what they’re doing. They seem to not be embracing the crazy,” said one senior GOP lawmaker who requested anonymity.

“There is a path for us to take it back, but they have good candidates. They have money they are still raising left and right,” the source added. “You just don’t know if the intensity of our voters will be enough, because [Democrats] are still engaged.”

In the first three months of this year, the House Democrats’ campaign arm hauled in more than $32 million, while the GOP’s campaign operation raised $25 million.

Another GOP lawmaker said it will be hard for Republicans to make the case to voters they deserve the majority when they failed to repeal ObamaCare or fund Trump’s border wall in the last Congress when they controlled all the levers of the government.

“It would be very difficult to take back the majority when most people see it as a squandered opportunity when Republicans had the majority,” the second GOP lawmaker told The Hill.

Independent Expenditures

In Defying the Odds, we discuss congressional elections as well as the presidential race.  Campaign finance is a big part of the story.

A release from the Campaign Finance Institute:

General Election IE Tool

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Independent expenditures (IEs) reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for general election House and Senate contests have continued on a record pace, totaling $695 million through October 21st. This is $103 million more than on the same date in 2016, based on a Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) analysis of data supplied by the FEC. Detailed data on all races with independent expenditures, and on the organizations making the IEs, are available and updated daily on CFI's website via these links: House | Senate |Spenders.

Spenders

Eight of the top ten spenders in the general election are party committees (DCCC, NRCC, NRSC, DSCC) or organizations, mostly Super PACs, tied to the congressional leadership. These organizations were responsible for a combined $409 million, or 59% of all general election IEs through October 21. Breaking them down, the leadership-related entities have been responsible for $265 million and the formal party committees $144 million. This is the first time the leadership-related committees have been quite so important. In 2014 the leadership-related groups spent about half as much as the formal party committees. By 2016 they had pulled almost even. This year, the leadership-related entities so far have come close to doubling the formal party committees.

With respect to the partisan breakdown: All IE spending has been virtually even in the amount spent to support Democrats and Republicans. Republican candidates currently hold a slight edge at 51% to 49%.

Top Races

A large number of House races are considered to be competitive this year and IE spending decisions are backing that up. In 2016 there were forty House races that had $1 million or more in independent expenditures through the entire general election. With two weeks still remaining before the 2018 election, there are already sixty-two districts with over $1 million in outside money.

The competitive landscape in the House is heavily weighted towards Republican incumbents defending their seats. The top ten House races by IE spending, each exceeding $9 million, all represent such districts. On the Senate side, the situation is mostly reversed with Democrats defending seats in seven of the top ten races.


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Paying Your Dues

In Defying the Odds, we discuss congressional elections as well as the presidential race.  Campaign finance is a big part of the story.

Rachel Bade and John Bresnahan at Politico:

House GOP leaders, fearful of the staggering amount of cash fueling Democratic candidates this cycle, are leaning on safe and retiring members to pony up to save the House.

At the outset of a private call with members last week, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) implored lawmakers to donate to the National Republican Congressional Committee or vulnerable colleagues. And NRCC Chairman Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) has been working the phones in one-on-one conversations to persuade members to give.

The drive, according to four senior Republican lawmakers and aides, is focused on members with easy reelection campaigns or who are retiring from Congress next year — people sitting on piles of cash that could be used to save vulnerable incumbents. Leaders are targeting some powerful outgoing chairmen, typically the most prolific fundraisers, who haven’t met their annual required “dues” to the NRCC, according to multiple sources.

Issue One, a political reform organization, has a report on party dues here. 

In return for desirable committee assignments, party leaders on both sides expect members to pay "dues." As the report says, dues take three forms:

1. Money that is raised, usually by “dialing for dollars,” by a member on behalf of the party, which goes directly into the party’s war chest but is credited to the member.
2. Money that is transferred from a member’s campaign committee or leadership PAC to the party.
3. Money that is transferred from a member’s campaign committee or leadership PAC to fellow members and/or candidates in tough races.