It’s very difficult for even the most motivated partisan hack to say anything good about Kevin McCarthy, but give the ex-speaker this: He could raise money like his life depended on it. His now-extinguished political career certainly did. Since 2016 (a not-so-arbitrary cutoff, as we’ll see in a moment), McCarthy has hauled in $77 million from donors for his own campaign committee, nearly all of which was largesse intended to bolster fellow Republicans.
And it worked, at least to an extent. After Republicans lost the House in 2018’s blue-wave midterm election, McCarthy was duly elected as his party’s minority leader, thanks in key part to the relationships he forged—and the favors he banked—as a top GOP money-man. And all that dough, which doesn’t even include the tens of millions that donors have given to the many PACs in McCarthy’s orbit, helped the GOP reclaim the House last year, even if the nine seats they netted fell far short of McCarthy’s own predictions.
Of course, that shortfall is precisely why McCarthy is no longer speaker: While a five-seat majority proved to be plenty for Nancy Pelosi, it was never remotely enough for House Republicans. But now their new speaker, an obscure Louisianan named Mike Johnson, will inherit that same problem, compounded by another one—one that even the hapless McCarthy can smugly claim never tormented him: a lack of proven fundraising ability.
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