The latest must-read report from the American Accountability Foundation details how the
GOP leadership spent its huge war chest during the midterms and details further evidence that the Establishment takes care of its own people, while letting conservatives fight for their seats on their own.
Of the over $365 million Republican Leader McCarthy had at his disposal to direct to candidates, he directed $76,671,587.56 of it to conservative members of and candidates for the Republican Conference and $126,435,136.61 to liberal/establishment members or candidates for the Republican Conference. This breaks down to conservatives receiving 20.99% of campaign funding, with liberal/establishment candidates receiving 34.62% of the funding. The remainder was distributed to Members and candidates who are not an obvious fit in either of those categories.
The ideological breakout of the candidates provides an important insight into the leadership direction of Congressman McCarthy should he be elected Speaker. AAF research reviewed the independent expenditures from the PACs, as well as the transfers out of the Take Back the House Committee to campaign committees.
The following charts are an aggregation of the funds provided to support candidates. The totals come from Federal Election Commission filings, and are broken out by PAC in the AAF report on Leadership expenditures:
Our CHQ analysis of the AAF report has led us to conclude that the crucial test of how much money a candidate received was not how close the race was or the likelihood of flipping a Democrat seat – it was how likely to vote for Kevin McCarthy to be Speaker the candidate or Member was. Those who were outspoken in their belief there should be new House leadership got less or no funding while those who had little competition, but supported McCarthy, were funded even if they didn’t need it to win.
2022 campaign spending
Kevin McCarthy
Republican establishment
GOP fundraising
GOP majority
Republican Conference
conservative candidates
Republican PACs
Take Back the House committee