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The group of 147 senators and representatives who objected to President Joe Biden’s victory, the so-called “sedition caucus,” confronted instant donor backlash after the Jan. 6 rebellion. However they nonetheless raised a staggering amount of cash for the 2022 election cycle—almost $200 million.
To place that in perspective, it’s about $60 million greater than former President Donald Trump’s Save America equipment raised throughout the identical interval. The nationwide fundraising arms for Home and Senate Republicans raised $262 million and $234 million, respectively.
About $77.7 million got here from particular person donors, with one other $121.5 million from different federal committees, together with campaigns, joint fundraising autos, company PACs, commerce associations, and different particular curiosity teams, in accordance with The Day by day Beast’s evaluate of Federal Election Fee bulk contribution knowledge for the cycle, masking by means of Oct. 31, 2022.
The uncooked contribution knowledge was compiled by Advance Democracy, an unbiased, nonprofit group that conducts public-interest analysis, and analyzed by The Day by day Beast.
The sedition caucus additionally options a few of the high congressional fundraisers general.
Within the Home, six of the highest 10 Republican cash attracts this cycle have been election objectors, with Minority Chief Kevin McCarthy main the pack, adopted by Minority Whip Steve Scalise, in accordance with knowledge from the Heart for Responsive Politics. Of the 5 candidates on that listing who raised greater than $10 million, just one voted to uphold Biden’s win: Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX).
Solely one of many seven objectors within the Senate was up for election this 12 months, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who in accordance with CRP pulled in $37.5 million for his profitable re-election. Additionally on Tuesday, Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) moved from the Home to the Senate, profitable his bid in North Carolina. (Budd’s Senate marketing campaign raised about $12.6 million by means of Oct. 19, which places him among the many high 10 GOP fundraisers within the Home, however doesn’t crack the highest 20 for Senate Republicans, in accordance with CRP totals.)
Issues additionally get attention-grabbing on the donor aspect.
Within the wake of the Jan. 6 assault, greater than 120 firms pledged to droop political donations to Republicans who voted to overturn the election. However the knowledge reveals that, whereas many companies saved that pledge, numerous main firms turned the spigot again on.
Based on the information, as of Oct. 31, eight firms—Koch Industries, AT&T, Comcast, American Crystal Sugar Firm, UPS, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Valero—had given extra money this cycle to committees affiliated with election objectors than the Republican Nationwide Committee, the Nationwide Republican Congressional Committee, and the Nationwide Republican Senatorial Committee. All however a kind of eight firms had promised to pause donations in some kind after the rebellion, with American Crystal Sugar being the outlier.
In all, the information reveals that 68 personal firms contributed at the very least $100,000 to committees related with lawmakers who rejected Biden’s victory. (The dataset consists of management PACs and different formally affiliated teams along with marketing campaign committees.)
The most important personal donor on the listing is billionaire GOP megadonor Dick Uihlein. The Uline delivery mogul fanned out about $405,000 to the sedition caucus, unfold throughout greater than two dozen committees, along with his spouse Elizabeth throwing in one other $280,000. Different notable megadonors embrace hedge fund honcho Ken Griffin ($280,800), House Depot founder Bernie Marcus ($266,300), and Boston Celtics co-owner Rob Hale, who handed over $260,500 to the Scalise Management Fund.
However the largest particular person donor on the listing was himself an election objector. That might be Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), who dumped almost $445,000 of his personal cash into his re-election bid, which collapsed spectacularly below the burden of scandal and mismanagement this Might. As Pay Grime beforehand reported, Cawthorn has personally invested a complete of $817,000 into his political efforts since 2019. He has up to now recovered solely $261,000, leaving him on the hook for $556,000.
Whereas it’s clear that the sedition caucus did fairly nicely on the financial institution, the political final result continues to be unsure.
Voters shot down election-denying Republican candidates for governor, secretary of state, and legal professional basic in numerous key races this week, a part of a extra broad repudiation of what many conservatives believed could be a crimson wave. However as of Wednesday night time, greater than three dozen candidates who rejected Biden’s election had themselves claimed victory, in accordance with The New York Occasions, with 180 of the Home winners—greater than a 3rd—having questioned or denied the 2020 outcomes.
However as of Wednesday night time, numerous key contests remained unresolved—most notably Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who was nonetheless barely underwater in a surprisingly tight race. Not counting Budd, Boebert is the Tenth-strongest Republican fundraiser within the Home.