The House GOP has its leader; is he a rainmaker?
The decision to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker and replace him with a little-known congressman, Mike Johnson, R-La., has left a glaring financial gap for House Republicans headed into 2024 when the party has to defend its narrow and fragile majority.
McCarthy's political operation brought in more than 100 times the amount of money that Johnson has collected so far in 2023 — $78 million to roughly $608,000, according to federal records and public disclosures. And in Johnson's entire congressional career, dating to his first run in 2016, he has raised a total of $6.1 million — less than McCarthy's average monthly take this year.
The willingness of House Republicans to trade a party rainmaker for a member who has raised less than some more junior colleagues has caused a deep sense of uncertainty at the highest levels of the conference, even as relieved lawmakers united behind Johnson to end weeks of political paralysis.
“Mike Johnson is not known to be a prolific fundraiser. He's raised money to meet his needs in a noncompetitive seat in Louisiana,” said Tom Reynolds, a former New York congressman and past chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “It remains to be seen: Can he raise money to help the members when it comes time next year?”
In the days since he took the gavel, Johnson called Dan Conston, the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, the main House Republican super political action committee, and is expected to play a significant role in that group's fundraising going forward. And in a sign of the urgency of the political task ahead — in addition to governing — Johnson, in a meeting first reported by Punchbowl News, visited the headquarters of the National Republican Congressional Committee within hours of his swearing-in Wednesday.
Johnson has large financial shoes to fill.
McCarthy has been directly responsible for 10% to 25% of all the campaign money raised this year by almost all of the House's most vulnerable Republicans, according to an analysis of federal records.
McCarthy's transfers to the party's House campaign committee amount to more than 25% of the $70.1 million raised this year. Then there are the hundreds of millions of dollars that McCarthy has helped raise in recent years for the House GOP's main super PAC, which has been closely aligned with him.
In a brief interview Friday, McCarthy pledged to “help the party to bridge the gap” in the coming weeks and months as the new speaker takes over, though it is not yet clear if he will keep up the dizzying pace of travel that his team said had taken him to 22 states and 85 cities this year.
“I helped build the majority, and I'm not going to walk away from it,” McCarthy said.
One person who has been in touch with the new speaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Johnson understood the weight of his new responsibility, not just legislatively but also politically.
Adding to the sense of uncertainty among top Republicans is how Johnson's hard-line positions on social issues — his opposition to same-sex marriage and strict anti-abortion stance — will play with some of the party's key financiers, who tend to be more moderate than the party base.
Allies of Johnson predicted he would quickly take to the money circuit. To some extent, the perpetual money machine that is modern Washington has already begun to adjust to the new Republican order.