Congressional Leadership Fund

The biggest sign that I've seen that Republicans are in serious trouble happened this week.

The Congressional Leadership Fund is cutting off financial support for two incumbent Republican House members seeking re-election, not because they're winning and they don't need to spend it, but because they're losing.

Now, this is a big deal because parties are set up to be incumbent protection.

The easiest ones typically for us to win are incumbent races, but officials have decided to cancel all remaining advertising for Tom Kean in Jersey and Representative Miller-Meeks in Iowa after their internal polls showed their chances dimming, and they're starting to shift money into some other states like South Carolina 1, where Trump won by 13 points.

America PAC, his own committee, took more than seventy-six million dollars.

The Congressional Leadership Fund took twenty million dollars.

That is one man buying one election in the open.

It is legal, and understanding exactly why it is legal matters more than the outrage does.

I do.

Well, with some election news that is also bad, the Congressional Leadership Fund-

You guys are a load of fun.

I know.

... and it's horrible to hear.

It's, it's true.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, which is the primary super PAC backing House Republicans, raised a record of $94 million in the third quarter, bolstered by major contributions from Elon Musk and Timothy Mellon to help defend the party's narrow House majority.

Despite this surge, Democratic outside groups hold an overall cycle-to-date fundraising lead of 514 million to 370 million when including allied dark money nonprofits.

There's also a question of, like, where are they not spending their money, and I think it's a, you know, rather glaring sign.

The, um, Congressional Leadership Fund is the leading House Republican super PAC.

This is where a lot of the donations go through.

Uh, last week, they basically gave up on Nebraska's district of, uh, Republican Representative Don Bacon is retiring.

Now, why do I mean that? Well, we've had polls for a long time, and you asked last week, David, like, Could the polls all be baloney? And therefore, is this all a mist and a cloud? And so you look for evidence beyond just polling.

And as you mentioned, David, what you've seen is that the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is the super PAC that's run by Speaker Mike Johnson's allies, has been reallocating money, taking it away from some vulnerable Republicans in Iowa, in New Jersey, Tom Keene, who we talked about earlier, who talked about his depression and how that had caused him to seek treatment.

And they have taken money out of those races and a couple of others.

And, In addition to taking out of some races, they spent $4.5 million in the Brian Fitzpatrick race in the Philadelphia suburbs.

So if we look for real signs of people taking real action based on the idea that Democrats are going to do well and Republicans aren't, that's some of what you would look for.

There's also the CLP.

The Congressional Leadership Fund canceled $3 million in spending that it had reserved to run ads against Henry Cuellar, the South Texas Democrat, whose district Texas Democrats redrew to try to defeat him.

That's important, obviously, because one of the things that will make this House race more difficult for Democrats who are well poised to do well is the fact we've had these redistrictings.

There's also a question of, like, where are they not spending their money, and I think it's a, you know, rather glaring sign.

The, um, Congressional Leadership Fund is the leading House Republican super PAC.

This is where a lot of the donations go through.

Uh, last week they basically gave up on Nebraska's district of, of Republican Representative Don Bacon is retiring.

Now, why do I mean that? Well, we've had polls for a long time, and you asked last week, David, like, Could the polls all be baloney? And therefore, is this all a mist and a cloud? And so you look for evidence beyond just polling.

And as you mentioned, David, what you've seen is that the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is the super PAC that's run by Speaker Mike Johnson's allies, has been reallocating money, taking it away from some vulnerable Republicans in Iowa, in New Jersey, Tom Keene, who we talked about earlier, who talked about his depression and how that had caused him to seek treatment.

And they have taken money out of those races and a couple of others.

And in addition to taking out of some races, they spent $4.5 million in the Brian Fitzpatrick race in the Philadelphia suburbs.

It's the first money put into his race since 2020.

So if we look for real signs of people taking real action based on the idea that Democrats are going to do well and Republicans aren't, That's some of what you would look for.

There's also the COF, the Congressional Leadership Fund, canceled $3 million in spending that it had reserved to run ads against Henry Cuellar, the South Texas Democrat, whose district Texas Democrats redrew to try to defeat him.

That's important, obviously, because one of the things that will make this House race more difficult for Democrats who are well poised to do well is the fact we've had these redistrictings.

According to original reporting from The New York Times, two Republican super PACs have canceled planned TV advertising in Iowa 1, shifting those resources to other districts instead.

One of the PACs was the Congressional Leadership Fund, the PAC aligned with House Speaker Mike Johnson, which was then sort of odd because the speaker was just in Iowa campaigning for Miller-Meeks.

So I'm confused.

Sarah, you and Haley followed up on the Times story.

What's going on?

Yeah.

So the Congressional Leadership Fund told us that it is planning to reallocate $10 million from four district- districts.

So Miller-Meeks' district, and then districts in New Jersey, Ohio, and Michigan.