Republicans’ Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) and American Action Network (AAN) raised $68 million combined in 2019 — a record for an off-year.
The fundraising haul is significant, particularly for an off-year where the GOP holds a minority in the House. As the Politico Playbook reports, the amount raised comes as a surprise “because House Republicans are in the minority, and conventional wisdom holds that they don’t have a pathway out.”
Additionally, CLF, which raised $32.6 million alone, has $28 million cash on hand, which is “the most it has ever had going into an election year and twice as much as ever before.”
Last time around, fundraising efforts rallied around a singular issue, tax reform, but this haul is significant, as it “illustrates that donors believe Republicans have a decent chance of putting up a fight to win back the House,” per Politico‘s Playbook.
“With the DCCC and Dem candidates mopping the floors with the NRCC and GOP candidates, CLF and AAN’s cash will be critical for the party,” the Playbook adds.
The news comes on the heels of the AAN deploying a multimillion-dollar ad blitz targeting vulnerable pro-impeachment Democrats representing congressional districts won by President Trump in 2016:
Meanwhile, both the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Trump’s reelection campaign hauled massive amounts in fundraising last year, particularly amid the Democrats’ partisan impeachment battle. Federal Election Commission (FEC) records showed the RNC raised more than $20 million in November 2019 alone, while the Trump campaign raised $46 million in the last quarter of 2019.
According to reports, the Trump campaign and RNC raised $463 million combined and have an estimated $200 million cash on hand.
The RNC is expected to swarm key battleground states with hundreds of additional staffers as the election draws closer, Breitbart News detailed last week.