What will the GOP choose: relinquish sedition, or take the money?
GOPers Pull In Fundraising Hauls After Sowing Doubt In Election Process
By Summer Concepcion | April 13, 2021 4:22 p.m.
Efforts to delegitimize the election process are paying off for Republican members of Congress who egged on then-President Trump’s election fraud falsehoods, a crusade that culminated in the deadly Capitol insurrection earlier this year.
Fox News reported Tuesday that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who worked with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) in leading the handful of GOP senators who objected to certifying Joe Biden’s narrow victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania, pulled in a massive $5.3 million in the first quarter of fundraising this year.
Expand Article
According to Fox News, Cruz’s fundraising haul was split between his re-election committee as well as a joint fundraising committee that sends contributions to the reelection committee and his leadership PAC.Pulling from more than 112,000 donors, Cruz reportedly has more than $5.6 million on hand.
Cruz’s fundraising haul was reported a day after a Politico report similarly showed that Hawley, who is not up for re-election until 2024, is raising big bucks after sowing doubt in the democratic process too.
Politico reported that Hawley raised more than $3 million during the first three months of the year.
Partaking in the effort to stop the certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory appears to have paid off for the Missouri senator, who reportedly raised $600,000 in the two and a half weeks following the Capitol insurrection. Hawley had raised a fraction of that haul ($43,000) in the first quarter of last year’s election cycle.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), the QAnon-sympathizing member of Congress whose committee assignments were revoked after her past remarks musing about violence towards her Democratic colleagues resurfaced, also received a big fundraising boost so far this year.
Greene reportedly raked in over $3.2 million in campaign contributions during the first quarter, according to Politico. 100,000 individual donors reportedly contributed to Greene’s first-quarter haul.
And despite former President Trump’s warring with the GOP’s traditional fundraising arms last month — which involved issuing cease-and-desist letters to the RNC, NRCC and the NRSC demanding that the committees stop fundraising off of his name and likeness — it appears GOP fundraising efforts heading into next year’s midterm elections are going strong.
Even after dozens of corporations vowed earlier this year to to rescind their financial support of lawmakers who objected to the certification of Biden’s victory, the NRSC announced on Tuesday that it raised more than $23 million in the first quarter of the year. The group pulled in $8.3 million in March alone, exceeding the $6.4 million it raised in February.
Summer Concepcion is a newswriter for TPM based in New York. She previously covered the 2016 election for Fusion, conducted investigative research for The Nation Institute, and has written for NBC Chicago and the Chicago Reader.
