Nearly all of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump earlier this year have set fundraising records, despite Trump's repeated vow to help "primary" and replace each of the GOP lawmakers.
Major GOP donors, conservative political action committees (PACs) and even some Democrats have given the 10 House Republicans an influx of campaign cash since the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot. Despite an angry Trump vowing to "get rid of them all" at February's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), seven of the 10 set personal first-quarter fundraising records, a Bloomberg analysis revealed Friday.
The 10 House incumbents include some of the former president's most vocal GOP critics, including Illinois' Adam Kinzinger and Wyoming's Liz Cheney, who Trump has personally singled out as "hacks" and "warmongers."
All 10 of the House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his alleged role in the deadly riot have managed to out-fundraise their Trump-backed challengers.
According to the latest Federal Election Commission records first obtained by Bloomberg, all 10 incumbents have collectively raised $6.4 million, with seven of them pulling in non-election year personal records.
So far, 15 primary challengers have formally announced their campaigns to take down the dissenting 10 Republicans in their districts. Despite having potential future access to Trump's high-profile super PAC donors, these 15 challengers' campaign finance reports show they're lagging far behind the 10 sitting congressional lawmakers.
Among all 15 pro-Trump challengers, they've raised $1.9 million in total through the first-quarter. One-quarter of the money placed in the 15 challengers' campaign coffers came from their own pockets, the latest campaign finance report shows.
Trump has already offered personal endorsements for several of the challengers, including Max Miller, a former Trump campaign and White House aide, who is taking on Ohio GOP Representative Anthony Gonzalez. Miller, who has pulled in $508,639 in donations so far, received contributions from some of Trump's prolific mega-donors including Foster Friess and Boris Epshteyn.
Trump's $80 million-worth super PAC, Save America, has not yet donated any money to Miller or the other challengers' campaigns.
Corporate, leadership and conservative PACs made up a large portion of the 10 House Republicans' donations, but some liberal-leaning PACs including one backed by Google also gave to each of the 10 incumbents. Numerous longstanding Democratic donors, including people who gave to President Joe Biden's presidential campaign, switched over and donated to the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump.
Cheney, who Trump blasted as a "warmonger" during February's CPAC speech, has received by far the most re-election campaign money so far, with Kinzinger in second, the campaign finance report shows.
During his CPAC speech, Trump listed the seven GOP senators and 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him by name off the top of his head.
"And in the House, Tom Rice of South Carolina, Adam Kinzinger [of Illinois], Dan Newhouse [of Washington], Anthony Gonzalez [of Ohio], Fred Upton [of Michigan], Jaime Herrera-Beutler [of Washington], Peter Meijer [of Michigan], John Katko [of New York], David Valadao [of California] and of course the warmonger, a person that loves seeing our troops fighting, Liz Cheney [of Wyoming], how about that?" the former president said at the February conference in Florida.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's office as well as the congressional offices of Kinzinger and Cheney.
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About the writer
Benjamin Fearnow is a reporter based out of Newsweek's New York City offices. He was previously at CBS and Mediaite ... Read more
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