Recent filings with the Federal Election Commission show that as of October 30, the Republican National Committee had just $9.1 million in cash, its lowest amount since February 2015. Four years ago, in the lead up to the 2020 election, the party had $61 million in its war chest.
By comparison, the Democratic National Committee said last month it had $17.7 million of cash on hand.
Previous monthly donations reports show a similar trend: in September, the DNC outpaced the RNC by more than twice the amount, raising $13.3 million as compared to their $6.3 million. In August, when former US President Donald Trump, a Republican, was booked at a Georgia courthouse on charges that he incited the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol, the RNC raised $9.7 million while the DNC raised $7 million. In July, the Democrats raised $9.6 million and the Republicans $6.4 million.
“It’s a revenue problem,” Tennessee RNC member Oscar Brock told US media. “We’re going through the same efforts we always go through to raise money: the same donor meetings, retreats, digital advertising, direct mail. But the return is much lower this year. If you know the answer, I’d love to know it. The staff has managed to tighten down on expenses to keep the party from going into the red.”
However, the money flow doesn’t necessarily reflect a change in party loyalties: a recent CNN poll found voters almost evenly split, with 48% saying they would support a generic Republican and 47% saying they would support a generic Democrat candidate.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told US media that more donors were “fully committed to their candidate” instead of giving to the party, which she said “is normal.”
“There’s nothing unusual about this, because they know that once their candidate gets in that we will merge and that we’ll be working together to win the White House,” she added.
However, the last few months have hurt Republicans’ reputations, as the party brought down its own House Speaker, then squabbled for nearly a month over who should replace him. US Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), the lawmaker who introduced and championed the resolution that forced Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the Speaker’s chair in early October, was recently blamed by a conservative-leaning news outlet for being an agent of chaos in Congress.
Juan Williams, an analyst for Fox News, wrote in a Monday op-ed in The Hill that Gaetz is “politician of the year” - a title the journalist bestowed ironically, calling Gaetz “a provocateur” who is “dangerous and corrosive.”
"Gaetz deserves a place in history,” Williams said. “He is a living monument to an era of elected Republican officials with no interest in governing."
“Gaetz takes the prize for successfully paralyzing the House for the entire year," Williams continued. " With his hands on the wheel and driving toward revenge and chaos - all to raise his personal profile and stir up small, online donations - Gaetz crashed the House of Representatives in a ditch on a low road."
In January, Gaetz was instrumental in making McCarthy speaker, as the narrow Republican majority in the House gave inordinate “kingmaking” power to his small faction of right-wing Republicans. McCarthy’s downfall came after he was seen as abrogating a deal with Gaetz for brinkmanship politics regarding the US federal budget and the national debt, including 11th-hour deals with Democrats to avert a pair of crises in June and September in which Republicans had hoped to extract concessions from the Dems.
Williams said Gaetz won out over other conservative politicians, including Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and George Santos of New York, all of whom had similarly damaged the party's standing. He added that some antics by McCarthy had done nothing to contribute, either.