Saturday, April 17, 2021

House Republicans Who Voted to Impeach Trump See Fundraising Boost

 

Tom Rice, Adam Kinzinger posing for the camera© Drew Angerer/Getty Images; Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Zuma Press; Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press

As they prepare to face primary challengers, the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump after his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 raised significantly more money during the first quarter of 2021 than they did two years earlier.

The group, leveraging the power of incumbency, also swamped their GOP primary opponents in almost every instance during the first round of fundraising since angering Mr. Trump with their votes, new Federal Election Commission filings show.

While all the incumbents outraised challengers who filed campaign finance reports, it is still early in the two-year election cycle and money is just one factor in typically low-turnout primaries.

Mr. Trump’s political-action committees could also weigh in financially on some of the contests, and his endorsements could carry significant weight with the party’s base. The PACs aren’t required to report their latest totals until July, but one of them, Save America PAC, started the year with $31 million in the bank and has continued to raise money since then.

In a speech earlier this year at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he called out all 10 by name, Mr. Trump told his supporters to “get rid of them all” in next year’s elections.

Nine of the 10 incumbents already have primary challengers, in some cases multiple ones. Some GOP strategists worry such party infighting could undermine their prospects of taking back control of Congress in 2022, though half of the districts represented by Republicans who voted for impeachment were won by Mr. Trump by 5 percentage points or more in November’s general election and are unlikely Democratic takeover targets.

The race for Wyoming’s single House seat is a good example of the dynamics at play. The $1.5 million raised by the main campaign committee for Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the highest-ranking House Republican who is contending with impeachment-vote consequences, represented almost five times what she raised in the first quarter of 2019.

Ms. Cheney, who survived an effort by pro-Trump colleagues to remove her from her party-leadership post, had more than $1.4 million in her campaign account at the end of March after the best fundraising quarter of her political career. Some of her top donations included $10,000 apiece from the Believe in America PAC of Sen. Mitt Romney (R., Utah) and the Republican Jewish Coalition PAC.

Three Republican candidates filed fundraising reports as part of running against the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney in next year’s primary, something Mr. Trump has noticed.

“So many people are looking to run against Crazy Liz Cheney—but we only want one,” he said in an April 14 statement released by his political-action committee. “She is so far down in Wyoming polls that the only way she can win is numerous candidates running against her and splitting the vote. Hopefully, that won’t happen. I’ll make an Endorsement soon!”

Ms. Cheney’s campaign didn’t directly respond when asked for comment. “Liz is standing up for the Constitution and standing up to the Biden administration’s partisan overreach, so it’s no surprise her approach is resonating in the form of increased donations,” Kevin Seifert, a Cheney political adviser, said in a statement.

After Ms. Cheney, the top GOP fundraiser in her district was state Sen. Anthony Bouchard. He raised $335,000 after announcing his candidacy in mid-January, with roughly two-thirds coming from contributions of $200 or less.

Many of those challenging the incumbents didn’t file to be candidates until after the impeachment vote, so their campaigns are just getting started and didn’t benefit from a full quarter of fundraising.

Some of Mr. Trump’s strongest supporters in Congress also recorded robust fundraising.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.), an ally of Mr. Trump who was removed from her committee assignments this year over her past embrace of conspiracy theories, raised $3.2 million. Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), who has strong ties to Mr. Trump, raised $2.1 million during the quarter.

About 80% of the Ms. Greene’s quarterly fundraising dollars came from contributions of $200 or less, the sort of donations Mr. Trump is effective at driving. Mr. Jordan’s small-dollar proportion was nearly as high.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, perhaps the most outspoken critic of Mr. Trump among the 10 Republicans who voted for impeachment, raised more than three times what he did two years ago, pulling in around $1.1 million during the quarter for his main campaign committee. He had $2.5 million in his campaign fund at the end of the quarter.

Catalina Lauf, who doesn’t currently live in Mr. Kinzinger’s district and ran an unsuccessful GOP primary bid in another Illinois district in 2020, had a little more than $100,000 in her campaign fund after raising about $163,000 in the quarter. Her candidacy has been praised by Corey Lewandowski, a longtime adviser to Mr. Trump, and she had a speaking role at last summer’s Republican National Convention.

Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina, arguably one of the more conservative lawmakers among the 10 who voted for impeachment, raised $405,000 during the quarter. That was up from $151,000 during the comparable time period in 2019.

Ken Richardson, a local school board chairman who declared his intentions to challenge Mr. Rice in early February, appeared to be the top fundraiser among the South Carolina challengers. He raised $155,000, including a $100,000 loan he made to his campaign.

Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio raised almost three times as much as during the first quarter of 2019, but the $617,000 that his campaign pulled in wasn’t much more than his Trump-backed challenger. Max Miller, a former Trump campaign and White House aide, raised $508,000.

Write to John McCormick at mccormick.john@wsj.com and Chad Day at Chad.Day@wsj.com

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