Wealthy business executives are funding House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) campaign to keep the U.S. House of Representatives in Republican control after the 2024 elections.
In January, McCarthy formed the Protect the House 2024 joint fundraising committee to raise money for incumbent House Republicans who may face challenging re-elections next year, as well as for Republican Party groups that can spend money to help re-elect them. Besides the candidates, the group is raising money for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the McCarthy-endorsed super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund, and several state Republican Party groups.
According to Fox News, McCarthy recently began doling out checks from the committee at an event at the Capitol Hill Club in D.C., distributing $4 million from Protect the House 2024 and another $4.4 million that he collected from House Republican members to 32 vulnerable House incumbents. Protect the House 2024 was set up to support Republicans including Reps. Lauren Boebert (Co.), John Duarte (Calif.), and Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.), according to its incorporation documents. The group is expected to report having raised $35 million in the first quarter of the year, according to the Fox News report.
A disclosure filed today with the Federal Election Commission reveals the identities of 45 individuals who donated to the group. The names on the list include many of the billionaires and business executives who have helped to propel the Republicans into power in recent years through donations to Republican super PACs as well as to past joint fundraising committees McCarthy has formed, such as Take Back the House 2022.
Many of the donors come from the investment management industry. In recent years, the Republican Party has protected the tax advantages that private equity firms and hedge funds enjoy, such as the so-called “carried interest loophole” that allow fund managers to treat their income as capital gains, which was not addressed in their 2017 tax bill. Investment firm executives that donated to Protect the House 2024 include Craig Duchossois of The Duchossois Group, Keith Rabois of Founders Fund, John Kelsey of Hamilton Point Investment, and Michael Psaros of KPS Capital Management.
Other donors to Protect the House 2024 have made their fortunes in energy, a sector that the House Republicans have worked to deregulate during their first few months in control of the chamber. The Republicans used the symbolic H.R. 1 designation for their package of industry-supported proposals dubbed the “Lower Energy Cost Act,” which they recently passed. The package rolls back environmental review procedures of permitting applications for energy projects, accelerates the approval process for mining projects, and makes available more public lands for oil drilling, among other things. Among Protect the House 2024’s energy industry donors are Energy Transfer Partners CEO and Chairman Kelcy Warren, Midland Energy founder and CEO Syed Javaid Anwar, and Energy Capital Partners founder Doug Kimmelman.
Oil and gas companies, their trade associations, and their executives donated $27 million during the 2022 election cycle to the McCarthy-endorsed Congressional Leadership Fund, Sludge has reported.
The disclosure was filed by a recipient of Protect the House 2024 funds, Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.), so it does not show the amount of money the donors have given to the committee. Because the committee was designed to split donations between 54 separate entities, including the Congressional Leadership Fund that can accept unlimited donations, it is likely that many of the donors who are named in Edwards’ filing have contributed tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to the group. In the previous cycle, some of these donors gave more than $1 million to McCarthy’s joint fundraising committee. Those details are due to be disclosed to the Federal Election Commission by Saturday, April 15.
Other notable donors to the group include casino resort developer Steve Wynn, real estate developer Ross Perot Jr., and chicken producer Ron Cameron.
A full list of known donors to Protect the House 2024 is below:
Michael Hayde, Western National Group
Anwar Syed, Midland Energy Inc.
Paul Foster, Franklin Mountain Management
John Nau, Silver Eagle Distributors
Ross Perot Jr.
Melissa Argyros, Arnel and Affiliates
Annette Simmons
Amy Warren
Kelcy Warren
Betty McKee
Ronald Cameron, Mountaire Corporation
Darcy Marshall
W.L. Lyons Brown
Robert Book, Book Capital Enterprises
Craig Duchossois, The Duchossois Group
Barbara Grimm Marshall
Laura Khouri, Western National Group
Andrea Wynn
Stephen Wynn
Charles Schwab, Charles Schwab Corporation
Keith Rabois, Founders Fund
Thomas Peterffy, Interactive Brokers
John Malone, Liberty Media
John Kelsey, Hamilton Point Investments
Michael Psaros, KPS Capital Partners
Nachhattar Singh Chandi
Doug Kimmelman, Energy Capital Partners
Dwight Schar
Martha Schar
Rose Friedman
Philip Friedman, Computer Generated Solutions Inc.
Steven Sherwood, CWS Capital Partners
John Saunders, Saunders Property Company
David Pyle, American Career College
Joanne Trempala, Know Corporation
John Catsimatidis, Red Apple Group
James Batmasian, Investments Limited
Mark Friedman, Level Four Business Management
David Fischer, Suburban Collection Holdings
Charles Brumbaugh, Kavigem
Deborah Castello
Haim Chera, Vornado Realty Trust
Saul Fox, Fox Paine & Company
Syed Javaid Anwar, Midland Energy Inc.
Jason Blackwell, Carr Blackwell and Associated
Robert Bishop, Impala Asset Management
Jay Robinovitz, Goldstein Group Management
