House Speaker's Unpopularity With Rich Donors Widens Republicans' Fundraising Gap [View all]
Source: Bloomberg
March 22, 2024 at 5:00 AM EDT
House Republicans are falling further behind on campaign cash with little-known House Speaker Mike Johnson at the helm. Unlike his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, Johnson is struggling to build a donor network. His difficulties come just months before the November election with Republicans’ narrow majority at risk.
Johnson, who lacks McCarthy’s fundraising prowess and deep business ties, has dramatically ramped up meetings with donors, traveling to 50 cities in nearly 20 states. But the party’s deficit with Democrats is growing, according to federal filings. The gap echoes a trend at the presidential level in which President Joe Biden is vastly out-raising presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Johnson’s reputation as a devout evangelical Christian who frequently makes biblical references is at odds with the beliefs of some business executives invited to meetings and dinners, one person familiar with GOP fundraising said.
Another donor said Johnson, who represents a district in northwestern Louisiana, comes off as much more thoughtful than McCarthy. Yet his very thin majority and a rule that makes it fairly easy to remove a speaker put him in a difficult position. Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida deployed that mechanism to overthrow McCarthy.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-22/speaker-mike-johnson-s-unpopularity-with-rich-donors-widens-gop-s-cash-crunch?srnd=homepage-americas
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