Here Are the Wealthy Executives Funding McCarthy’s ‘Protect the House’ Effort

Energy, real estate, and private equity executives are opening up their wallets to help keep the House in Republican hands.

Here Are the Wealthy Executives Funding McCarthy’s ‘Protect the House’ Effort
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

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



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