U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks with reporters after a Republican conference meeting on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, July 18, 2023.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
The super PAC aligned with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy could spend not less than $100 million within the 2024 election cycle to support GOP House candidates in states that were won by President Joe Biden in 2020, in accordance with a technique memo obtained by CNBC and committee executives.
“In 2024, the House shall be won or lost in blue states,” Congressional Leadership Fund president Dan Conston, wrote within the Aug, 7 memo addressed to “Interested Parties.”
“Swing voters in blue states are different from swing voters in swing states,” he added, and “Republican party infrastructure won’t be present in the identical way” in these states because it is in battleground states, where each parties have armies of volunteers and years of experience reaching voters.
Conston dubbed the CLF’s plan the “Blue State Project.” A senior executive later said the group could spend over $100 million on the project, but didn’t have a firm budget yet.
In states which can be consistently competitive in presidential and Senate contests, like Michigan and Pennsylvania, each Democrats and Republicans maintain huge volunteer networks and voter outreach programs.
But in states where one party has long been dominant, like Democrats in California or Republicans in Wyoming, there’s little motive for top super PACs to spend money build up voter outreach networks.
That is the challenge facing House Republicans, wrote Conston. “These blue states exist in a vacuum outside of the competitive presidential and senate races … meaning we must create our own infrastructure.”
It will include identifying key voters, constructing a voter contact plan and making a turnout strategy for Election Day, he wrote, listing three notoriously expensive, and sophisticated, elements of political campaign management.
Republicans currently have a slim majority within the House after the 2022 midterms, largely due to victories in blue states like Recent York, where the GOP flipped 4 House seats.
All of those flipped Recent York seats are 2024 targets of the campaign arm for House Democrats, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The Democratic rival House Majority PAC has said they’re investing $45 million in Recent York and $35 million in California.
There are currently six Republicans who represent Biden-won districts in Recent York, and one other five in California. To carry these seats in deep blue states would require that groups like CLF buy airtime for ads in among the costliest media markets within the country, Conston notes.
The Cook Political Report’s list of toss-up House seats — essentially the most competitive seats within the country — currently includes 13 Republican seats, 4 of them in Recent York and three in California.
Democrats, against this, hold 10 toss up seats, but none of them are in traditional Republican strongholds.
The Congressional Leadership Fund spokeswoman explained that the PAC’s planned efforts in blue states are going beyond Recent York and California, including targeting districts in Recent Jersey, Washington and Oregon.
The memo comes after the Congressional Leadership Fund raised over $19 million in the primary half of the 12 months and are going into the latter half of 2023 with around $17 million readily available, in accordance with federal election filings. The group raised over $260 million throughout the 2022 election cycle, in accordance with the records.
Top donors to this point this 12 months were Timothy Mellon, who gave $5 million, and Craig Duchossois, who contributed greater than $2 million, in accordance with the PAC’s disclosures.
Ozzie Palomo, a co-founder of lobbying firm Chartwell Strategy Group and a Republican fundraiser, told CNBC that competing in blue states may very well be key to maintaining and possibly expanding the GOP’s control over the House.
“With such a narrow majority, it’s vital that the map is expanded, and Republicans not only save seats in blue states but have a look at opportunities so as to add seats,” Palomo told CNBC.
The CLF memo also hints which specific districts the committee and House Republicans think they’ve the most effective probability at success.
Conston’s memo says the super PAC believes the party has a “serious pickup opportunities,” as an example, within the seats held by Reps. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., Susan Wild, D-Pa. and Matt Cartwright, D-Pa. Slotkin is currently running to interchange retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.
