Speaker Announces $21.7M Q2 Fundraising Haul
Washington, D.C. — Speaker Kevin McCarthy issued the following statement regarding his latest fundraising totals for the 2024 election cycle:
“As we continue to build on the historic successes of this Republican majority the campaign to protect and expand the House majority is gaining momentum,” said Speaker McCarthy. “Over the past six months, we have delivered historic spending cuts, worked to defend the border, and continued to investigate the Biden administration’s detrimental actions to the American public. The American people are responding to these accomplishments with an outpouring of support to advance this mission, and we plan on delivering for the country.”
NEWS ROUNDUP
GOP leaders are continuing to reap the rewards of a successful, yearslong strategy to erase the massive small-dollar fundraising advantage that Democrats enjoyed since former President Donald Trump took office in 2017. With it, they hope to spook potential Democratic contenders into not running — and offer a glide path for incumbents in critical must-win seats.
Some 65 Republican candidates raised $500,000 or more in the second quarter compared to 40 Democrats… That’s a stark contrast from this point four years ago: In 2019, about 30 Republicans crossed that threshold, compared to 50 Democrats.
Read more at Politico
The 25 NRCC “Patriot” members—national Republicans’ most vulnerable members—raised an average of $777,000 and had an average of $1.2 million on hand.
“Frontline” Democrats, the 29 members the DCCC considers the most vulnerable, raised an average of $499,000 and entered July with an average of $758,000 on hand.”
Read more at National Journal
From the Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito:
Six months after going through the very public, very dramatic, 15 rounds of voting by House members to become speaker, a vote filled with tense negotiations with a hard-line set of conservative lawmakers, McCarthy has emerged as speaker largely underestimated, which has worked to his advantage so far.
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Democrats were so dismissive of McCarthy’s ability to wrangle enough support in the House for a debt ceiling bill that they centered their talking points on McCarthy’s failure. When he got a bill through the House, Democrats were caught so off guard they continued pushing the same talking points even after McCarthy and the GOP made them irrelevant.
“No one ever thought I could get a debt ceiling bill passed,” McCarthy said. “The president said he wouldn’t negotiate with me. But here is the thing in the House: While he wasn’t negotiating, we were. For months, we were talking together.”
“And it’s not like [with a debt limit bill like this] you get to have an amendment when you get to the floor to try to fix something, to get somebody to vote for it,” he said. “You’ve got to start working out the problems early,” anticipating objections and putting together a bill that can pass once it hits the floor.
McCarthy is a bibliophile with a particular appetite for books on history and perseverance. He said he is also hard-wired to work to bring people together. His goal with any legislation, then, is twofold, according to the speaker: pass a bill that helps the public and involves enough participation by both sides to turn down the partisan temperature in the chamber.
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He’s even got one in mind: Angela Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. It’s a theme for the man who persevered through 15 rounds of voting to get the speaker’s gavel. “You know, I have created my whole speakership around that term, grit.”
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