From Roll Call: McCarthy Raises Campaign Cash, But He's No Boehner.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is one of the strongest campaign fundraisers in his conference, but he still can't hold a candle to outgoing SpeakerJohn A. Boehner, say Republicans mulling McCarthy as Boehner's successor.
Boehner’s fundraising operation was so extensive and successful — he donated tens of millions to his colleagues and candidates via multiple campaign committees and PACs — that his departure will leave a massive hole in Republican Party and GOP candidate coffers.
McCarthy is a Boehner protégé who has emulated the speaker’s fundraising practices — something that gives him a huge leg up in the contest to replace Boehner.
The only other House Republican considered in McCarthy’s league as a political money rainmaker is House Ways and Means Chairman Paul D. Ryan, a former vice presidential candidate who chairs a fundraising arm of the Republican National Committee known as the Presidential Trust. Ryan has taken himself out of the running for the speakership.
McCarthy has netted $13.1 million for his campaign committee and his personal leadership PAC since the beginning of 2014, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit that tracks political money. In the 2014 election cycle, a lucrative McCarthy joint fundraising committee known as the McCarthy Victory Fund pulled in $4.2 million.
But in that same election cycle, Boehner’s joint fundraising committee netted eight times that amount, with $35.4 million in receipts for the 2014 midterms alone. The Boehner for Speaker joint fundraising committee — a type of campaign account that raises large contributions and divvies them up amongst smaller committees — collected more than $71 million during Boehner’s tenure as speaker, CRP data show.
“The political operation that Speaker Boehner put together, I think, is unmatched, unparalleled,” said Dirk Van Dongen, president of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors. “He just raises a phenomenally large sum of money for members of the House and for candidates, and it remains to be seen what the future of the organization will be.”