Koch donors love Trump’s policies, if not the man
Wealthy supporters worry president is a distraction
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. – The wealthy donors in the conservative network founded by the billionaire Koch brothers may not be fans of President Trump’s tweets, but they are embracing many of the policies enacted during his first year in office.
And they are preparing to spend heavily this year to preserve the Republican Party’s hold on Congress amid worries that Trump’s unpredictable behavior will distract from the GOP’s achievements.
“If I had gone into a coma two years ago and woke up today and just read what had been accomplished, I would have been shocked and thrilled,” said Tom Sheperd, a Cincinnati businessman who was among the 550 donors who gathered at the Kochs’ private retreat in the California desert.
But Sheperd said Trump “isn’t helping get many Republicans elected.”
“I think he’s doing more harm than good,” he said, “because he’s distracting people from the good work that is happening either because of him or in spite of him.”
During the weekend gathering, Koch aides reiterated plans to spend a record $400 million on politics and policy to shape November’s midterm election, including $20 million to sell the $1.5 trillion Republican tax overhaul in the face of voter skepticism.
Koch operatives and donors alike acknowledged that Republicans face a difficult path in November.
Democrats need to nab 24 seats from the Republicans to seize control of the House. And Republicans face the headwinds of history: The party of a first-term president typically loses ground in midterm elections.
Republican strategists also have sounded alarms about Trump’s low approval ratings and a string of Democratic successes, including the party capturing a Wisconsin state Senate seat this month in a rural district that Trump won by 17 percentage points in 2016.
On Monday, Tim Phillips, president of the network’s main political group Americans for Prosperity, warned that
80 House seats could be in play in November as the GOP copes with a wave of retirements in competitive districts. He and the group’s CEO Emily Seidel implored donors to give early to help pummel vulnerable House and Senate incumbents on the airwaves and to boost Republican gubernatorial candidates in states such as Nevada.
In the Senate, Koch groups already have spent $3 million on ads to target first-term Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. Other Senate targets: Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly and Florida Sen. Bill Nelson.
“We’ve never faced a challenge like this year brings,” Seidel told the political financiers assembled to plot strategy.
The network is the biggest outside force in Republican politics and counts
700 donors who contribute at least
$100,000 annually to groups in the network. Many contribute millions more to the Kochs’ political operations.
“It is going to be a tough election,” acknowledged Art Pope, a North Carolina retail magnate who helped orchestrate Republican majorities in his state’s legislative chambers in 2010.
But Pope, who did not back Trump’s candidacy, suggested that voters might view individual Republican candidates differently than their party’s unorthodox leader. “He’s obviously a very unique historic president,” Pope said of Trump, but “he’s not the Republican Party. He definitely has his own brand.”