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“The Democrats have become our best fundraisers,” said Fred Zeidman, a Republican donor and fundraiser in Houston and chairman of investment bank Gordian Group.

Ten corporate PACs examined by Reuters slashed donations in January by more than 90% compared to the same month in 2017, right after the previous presidential election. All ten of the PACs had sworn off donating to the 147 lawmakers.Asked about the corporate boycott, NRCC chairman Tom Emmer, a Minnesota congressman, told Reuters that Republican House members “don’t answer to PACs. We answer to voters.”

Hawley, the Missouri senator, was pilloried by Republicans and Democrats for leading the coalition of Senate objectors. He took in $969,000 in donations in January, according to a Feb. 1 memo posted on his website. That is eight times some $120,000 in donations Hawley raised in the first quarter of 2020, regulatory filings show.

Three attendees told CNN that most people at the events were not wearing masks; all three say they have not been contacted by any contact tracers.

The decision to travel and participate in the fundraiser despite the knowledge of being exposed to the coronavirus is another example of the White House and administration's lackadaisical approach to mask wearing and Covid-19 prevention policies.

The decision was made to still hold the fundraiser despite Trump's exposure; attendees say they were not notified the President had been exposed to Covid-19.

If donors gave, or raised, $50,000, they were invited to a photo opportunity with Trump.

They said each individually conversed with Trump for less than a minute while the photo was taken and maintained six feet of distance. The attendees at the VIP reception did not wear masks, they said, but event staff did.

New Jersey resident Katherine Hermes told CNN that Trump stood at a podium, socially distant from the attendees, and held a question and answer session.

In response to the question about arrests and prosecutions, she remembers Trump responding that there was so much he couldn't tell the crowd.

"We unfortunately write today to notify you that, as you have probably seen, President Trump confirmed late last night that he and the First Lady were tested for COVID-19 and produced positive test results," the email, obtained by CNN, reads. "Out of an abundance of caution, we want to call this to your attention."

The two Texas attendees said they would be self-isolating and have been tested for coronavirus. Hermes told CNN she was only present for the outdoor speech, and would not quarantine or get tested, saying, "I was nowhere near the man."

It’s like political phantom limbs. He doesn't have the same political infrastructure he did three months ago as president,” added GOP strategist Matt Gorman, who previously served as communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Instead, Trump has maintained close ties to GOP officials who have committed to supporting incumbents, stayed almost entirely out of the spotlight, delivered fairly anodyne remarks the one time he emerged, and offered only sparse criticism of his successor, Joe Biden.

Trump has gone from threatening party bodies for using his name and likeness in their fundraising efforts to offering up his Mar-a-Lago estate as a host site for part of the Republican National Committee’s spring donor retreat. He savagely attacked veteran GOP operative Karl Rove for criticizing his first post-presidency speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee, and endorsed Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), who repeatedly scrutinized Trump’s own trade practices while in office.

In his role as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Scott has promised to stick by GOP incumbents — including Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump in his Senate trial last month on charges of inciting an insurrection. The Florida Republican said he had a “great meeting” with Trump in a tweet he shared Friday.

“For any normal politician, it would look like he’s trying to have it both ways but really he’s trying to have it his way,” said a former Trump White House official. “He only cares about maintaining his power and his stranglehold over the Republican Party and it doesn’t matter to him how any of the moves he makes affect the long-term success of institutions or individuals other than himself.”

He continues to hold court on the patio of his Mar-a-Lago resort where he is greeted by a standing ovation from members when he and the former first lady walk by. He spends his days monitoring the news, making calls and playing golf at his eponymous club just a few miles away.

But the factions that have already formed among those surrounding him suggest potential turbulence ahead. Three veterans of Trump’s 2020 campaign — Brad Parscale, Bill Stepien and Justin Clark — have been screening primary recruitments and brainstorming ways to reestablish his online presence, while Dave Bossie and Corey Lewandowski are in talks with the ex-president to launch a new fundraising entity on his behalf, according to people briefed on the recent discussions.

One former administration official who has been in contact with Trump described him as a “pinball,” noting that his tendency to abruptly change directions or seize on a new idea after speaking with a friend or outside adviser — a habit that often frustrated aides during his time in office — has carried into his post-presidency life.

The fear among Republicans is that Trump’s indecisiveness will extend to his personal political future as well. Trump has continued to dangle a 2024 run over the party, and the will-he-won’t-he guessing game has held presidential hopefuls in limbo. MOST READ IRS partially shields some stimulus payments from debt reductions MAGA voters discovered a new home online. But it isn't what it seems. Newsom says California recall likely to qualify, tries to soften Feinstein stance McCarthy decries ‘political stunt’ after troops visit lawmaker’s office An unlikely Trump turncoat shows the GOP way to resist his influence

But stripped of a social media platform like Twitter, the former president has had to rely on issuing statements — some mimicking the tone and length of his past tweets — via his post-presidency office or political PAC press lists. So far, he’s issued more than two dozen endorsements and statements since leaving the White House. The more recent ones have bashed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and sought credit for the current Covid-19 vaccine distribution.

When I was talking to the president this morning… he’s like, ‘Yeah, she’s no good. I said that and now everybody’s seeing it. But you realize if you say anything negative about Meghan Markle you get canceled. Look at Piers,’” Miller said, recounting his conversation with Trump, who had been referring to Piers Morgan, the polarizing “Good Morning Britain” host who parted ways with the show this week after dismissing Markle’s revelations as lies.

But so far, many of his recent political maneuverings have been met with a shrug by the GOP. Trump’s public tussle with the Republican Party over fundraising and the use of his name and likeness in appeals for money appeared to fizzle out after attorneys for the Republican National Committee denied Trump’s cease-and-desist demands. By week’s end, the RNC was not only still using Trump’s name in fundraising solicitations, it was offering him up as an enticement.

He adds: "This isn't a fundraising gimmick — it's the transparency and honesty I have promised you since I entered this race. The truth is, for our campaign, these debates have offered our only guaranteed opportunity to share my vision with the American people. If I can't make the next debate stage, we cannot sustain a campaign that can make it to Iowa in February."

Castro actually has met the fundraising threshold to qualify for the fifth debate. However, he has failed to reach the polling threshold.

"Our campaign is facing its biggest challenge yet," campaign manager Maya Rupert said in a statement. "Secretary Castro has run a historic campaign that has changed the nature of the 2020 election and pushed the Democratic party on a number of big ideas. Unfortunately, we do not see a path to victory that doesn't include making the November debate stage—and without a significant uptick in our fundraising, we cannot make that debate."

Their concerns are legion: With the White House dominating the news across the country on a daily basis, pollsters are seeing signs of a prospective surge in Latino voters that could swamp Republican candidates in battleground states like Florida and Colorado, put New Mexico’s governor’s race even further out of reach and making Arizona’s competitive.

Democrats’ ebullience could be tempered by a series of potentially messy primary contests that could mar the party’s prospects in battlegrounds in at least a half-dozen states. Between the Republicans’ strong fundraising and the history of states like Iowa — which has had just two Democratic governors in the past half-century — there’s still some hope on the right.

But amid talk of another 2006, Democrats have uncharacteristically stepped up their fundraising operation around these races, often pitching donors on their importance to the next round of redistricting. That push has brought in checks from party mega-donors, like Haim Saban and Mark Gallogly, who previously primarily gave to federal candidates, according to filings. So entering the year, the DGA had raised four times more from individual donors than it had at this point four years earlier — on top of quadrupling its number of contributors.

“For far too long our party has focused on the presidential [election] every four years and hasn’t done what it needed to do on the state level,” said outgoing Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat who has pledged to spend the year campaigning for gubernatorial candidates across the country. That focus, he said, is finally starting to shift. “There’s a tsunami coming in 2018,” he predicted. “We saw it in Virginia with a record voter turnout. We saw it in Alabama."

"That's simply not true. As I point out, the idea that any one senator, even me — even Mitch McConnell — is not going to convince other senators to reach a different conclusion than they would reach on their own," said Romney in the interview.

Schwarzman has also contributed to Romney's various political campaigns over the years. Since 1993, Schwarzman, along with his wife Christine, have contributed around $94,200 to Romney's federal campaigns or Romney linked groups, according to Center for Responsive Politics. Most recently, the couple each donated the maximum to Romney's Senate bid in 2018.

Schwarzman reportedly visited the White House this summer at Kushner's request, who convened a dinner to discuss his father-in-law's campaign fundraising strategy.

The fear-mongering needs to stop

a pharmacist who has worked in public health

About half came from other states — as far away as Texas and Arizona

State officials said the task has been complicated because the Republican National Committee only provided them with email addresses for attendees, not addresses and phone numbers.

Attendees said many guests were wearing masks — but not all the tim

"I was surprised to hear that he had the virus because he looked as healthy as I've ever seen him,"

President Trump's last public event – a fundraiser at his golf club in New Jersey – has touched off a major contact tracing effort as well as a messy political fight

In a December New York Times interview, Trump claimed that "[We lost] $17 billion with Canada — Canada says we broke even. But they don't include lumber and they don't include oil. Oh, that's not. ... [Inaudible] ... My friend Justin [Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister] he says, 'No, no, we break even.' I said, 'Yeah, but you're not including oil, and you're not including lumber.' When you do, you lose $17 billion, and with the other one, we're losing $71 billion."

According to January’s filings with the Federal Election Commission, 53% of the $25 million Sanders received in campaign donations were unitemized, or under $200. Biden could say the same for about 35% of his campaign donations. In both fundraising emails and stump speeches, Sanders is using this discrepancy to bolster his claims that “the establishment” — a term loosely defined as longtime party stalwarts and fundraisers that he frequently invokes — is on a mission to undermine his progressive movement.

Sanders’ grassroots support has put him in the unique position of being able to rail against these fundraising practices as part of his platform. Nearly every candidate — including Biden — began the race eschewing super PACs, which cannot coordinate with the campaigns but can spend unlimited amounts. But that stance eventually collided with the reality that it is hard to raise money while competing in a crowded field that until recently included two self-funding billionaires. Even Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who exited the race Thursday, reversed a campaign pledge and did not disavow a super PAC when one formed to support her as she struggled to gain traction.

Steyer hates the comparison

a 77-year-old who used to work at the sprawling dog food factory that greets visitors to Clinton, pumping out both steam and a vague smell of meat.

Nevertheless, there have been grumblings, about Steyer’s campaigning methods. By 13 January he had spent $123m on tv and digital advertising, according to NPR. Not including fellow Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor who is even wealthier than Steyer, that is more than all the other Democratic candidates combined.

ettner was open to voting for Steyer, potentially, but preferred the more progressive candidates, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Indeed, for all the goodwill Steyer received in Clinton, none of the people the Guardian spoke to actually planned to vote for him, and it was a similar story in Dubuque. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it vote for you.

“There’s no way that anybody, including Mike Bloomberg, can buy an election, the only thing you can do is see if Americans respond to what you have to say, and who you are, and what you’ve done in the past.

On Monday, when Iowans go to the caucuses, we’ll find out if that is, actually, how Americans see it.

Earlier this month, when Greene flirted with the idea of forming an "America First" caucus, a leaked flier promoting the caucus received sharp criticism for using inflammatory rhetoric. While many Republicans -- even some from the far-right Freedom Caucus -- were quick to distance themselves from the document and the caucus itself, Gaetz proudly proclaimed he was ready to sign up.

Greene has returned the favor. When news broke of a federal investigation into Gaetz, which includes allegations of sex trafficking and prostitution, many Democrats and even fellow GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois called for him to resign. But Greene defended her Florida colleague.

"I have proudly defended Matt Gaetz from the beginning because I know he has done nothing wrong and I recognized this playbook right from the start,"

Now the two are solidifying that alliance through the joint fundraising committee -- which generally allows politicians to secure a single, larger check from a donor and then split the money among several committees -- and their "America First" tour, which is set to kick off next Friday with an event at the Villages, a retirement community that is in neither of their congressional districts.

As the pressure on each grows, they have formed an unsurprising bond, often seen talking to each other on the floor of the House of Representatives, and they back each other up when others in the GOP aren't rushing to their defense.

"I think these people get too much attention. I don't really want to elevate or amplify their voices. They're not the Republican Party that I am excited to be a leader within," one Republican lawmaker, speaking on the condition of anonymity to speak more freely, told CNN. "For me, it'd be better if these guys just go away."

"This is part of the Republican Party's internal struggle about, you know, is this the party of Trump or is this the party of conservative values? And you know, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are many things, but you know, conservative Republicans they are not," the lawmaker said.

Greene has also become a fundraising force, despite being kicked off her congressional committees. The Democratic-controlled House voted to remove her in February in the wake of recently unearthed incendiary and violent past statements from the congresswoman that triggered widespread backlash. But the freshman raised an unprecedented $3.2 million in the first quarter of 2021, which largely came from an online spigot of small-dollar donations from people across the country.

Some Democrats have called on Gaetz to be removed from his committees as well because of his legal troubles.

Some Republicans fear that the more the pair are under attack, the stronger their base of support becomes. A separate GOP member of Congress argued that removing Greene from her committees left her only one option: waging a public relations war."I tell the Democrats, who ask me what we are going to do about MTG, that this situation is one of their own creation," the Republican lawmaker told CNN.

"It's obviously a bad look for the party. This is not who we are. This is not how we get the majority back. It's a distraction that's only going to hurt our efforts to talk about our agenda and talk about policy," said a GOP congressional aide.

Biden announced Harris as his choice for vice president on August 11, and in interviews, some Democratic women donors described a concerted effort to flood the campaign with cash in support of Biden's choice

Harris' sorority sisters, who have made more than 22,000 donations in increments of $19.08 -- marking the year, 1908, that Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. was founded at Howard University.

Polls show Trump consistently lagging behind Biden in surveys of women voters.

The cash infusion in August helped Biden and his aligned party committees shatter the single-month fundraising record for a presidential contender and helped fuel an advertising blitz for the former vice president as the fall campaign swung into view.

The lopsided support for the Biden-Harris ticket among female donors who give in larger amounts comes as women have stepped up their political activity more broadly. This year, a record 298 women are running in the general election for US House seats, topping the previous record of 234, set during the 2018 midterms, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

And women have contributed $2 billion to federal candidates in this cycle, surpassing the $1.3 billion they donated in 2016 when Democrat Hillary Clinton sought the presidency, according to the Center for Responsive Politics

"They realized they need to have a role and a voice because this was a place affecting their lives and the lives of their families, and they couldn't sit on the sidelines," she said.

The gap has only grown wider as Biden has outpaced the President in overall fundraising.

The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks money in politics, identifies donors' gender by applying an algorithm that compares the most popular US Census names to the names of donors reported to the Federal Election Commission

The growing influence of women donors is no accident. Donors and strategists have worked for years help direct political money to female candidates.

For instance, Electing Women Bay Area -- a "giving group" with 100 members in Northern California -- financially supports Democratic women in competitive races

"One of the things we have long stressed ... is this idea that men are used to writing the checks, and it's a muscle that has to be exercised," said Alexandra Acker-Lyons, who is Electing Women Bay Area's political director and runs her own philanthropic and political consulting firm. "Much like being a voter is a habit, being a donor is a habit."

Once it became clear that Biden intended to pick a female vice presidential nominee, some donors timed their contributions to make a big splash

"The fact that it was Kamala made it even made it even more intentional," she said, "because we were, and obviously still are, in a moment in our country where we particularly wanted to show up for a black woman nominee."

"Almost immediately, I started to see $19.08, $19.08, $19.08 on repeat," Clayton Cox, the Democratic National Committee's finance director, said of the stream of new donations that began popping up the day Harris joined the ticket.

More than 22,500 donations in increments of $19.08 have flowed into the Biden Victory Fund-- bringing in more than $430,000,

Michelle Arrington, an Atlanta attorney who pledged AKA at Howard a decade after Harris, has long supported Harris' political campaigns, dating back to her bid for California attorney general. Harris' push to promote research into uterine fibroids -- a condition Arrington has faced and that disproportionately afflicts Black women -- underscores the value of broad representation in government, she said.

But the informal movement to donate in amounts that reflects sorority's founding date was no surprise, she said. "It's indicative of the types of things we do: We'll start meetings at 12:08 or 7:08 p.m."

Trump’s coffers have paled in comparison with Clinton’s.

The Democratic National Committee asked a federal judge Wednesday to hold the Republican National Committee in contempt of court, claiming that Donald Trump and his campaign had violated a longstanding consent decree that bans the RNC from intimidating minority voters.

In total, he’s given himself a little over $56 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which doesn’t come close to his “more than $100 million” pledge.

That connection places the RNC in direct violation of a 1982 consent decree that limits how Republican officials can challenge minority voter qualifications at the polls, the DNC argued.

“The RNC is working in active concert with Trump, the Trump campaign, and Stone to intimidate and harass minority voters in violation of this Court’s Consent Decree,” the DNC’s filing said. “The Court should use its inherent contempt powers to remedy those violations, and enforce future compliance with the Consent Decree, with sanctions.”

The RNC settled the lawsuit in 1982 and agreed to a consent decree that, among other conditions, required the party and its associates to “refrain from undertaking any ballot security activities…where the racial or ethnic composition of such districts is a factor” and “where a purpose or significant effect of such activities is to deter qualified voters from voting.”

“Frankly, if any Catholic votes for Hillary Clinton, if I were a Catholic, I wouldn’t be talking to them anymore,” Trump said. “She’s been terrible in what she said and her thoughts toward Catholics, and to evangelicals—she was mocking evangelicals, also. Why would an evangelical or a Catholic—and almost, you could say, anybody of faith—but in particular, because they were mentioned, evangelicals and Catholics, why would they vote for Hillary Clinton, and how could they vote for Hillary Clinton?”

Trump donated just $31,000 to his campaign in early October despite promises to give up to $100 million to his campaign, according to a fundraising report filed Thursday. He has only donated $56 million to his race as of October 20.

The drumbeat of WikiLeaks disclosures yielded material to lambast Hillary Clinton and her family's foundation. And news of rising Obamacare premiums gave him an opening to criticize President Barack Obama's legacy that Clinton is running to inherit.

But 11 days before the election, Trump is down six points in CNN's Poll of Polls. His path to the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the presidency remains daunting and it will be tough to overcome the deficit in the remaining time. Trump seemed to acknowledge the challenges Thursday.

when Romney divides the world into makers and takers and presumes that our ability to pay federal income tax is a measure of which group we belong to, he sends a different message. He implicitly tells average Americans that their quiet work doesn’t “make” America unless they are entrepreneurs who make enough money. Worse, he tells them that their lives aren’t even dignified, that they are “takers” who are unable to exercise personal responsibility over their lives.

I choose to rededicate myself to building that shining city on a hill that Reagan evoked when he brought conservatism out of the wilderness.That city is one we all can help build and in which we all can live. It’s a city with citizens, not clients; a place where the government doesn’t keep its hands off or provide handouts but, instead, offers everyone a hand up. It’s one that exists not to enrich the few but to ennoble the many.

After Nov. 6, whether Romney wins or loses, the conservative movement will still face a time for choosing. Do we still value the Lenny Skutniks and Joe the Plumbers? Or are we a movement that not so subtly tells the average Jane and Joe that their sacrifices don’t count, that the place of honor is set only for the highest and most successful among us?

The wealthy parents charged in the scheme seemed to assume they wouldn’t get caught as long as their payments were disguised as contributions to a charity, and that worries Hackney, the Pitt professor. It seems to indicate a perception that charities aren’t closely scrutinized, and that the wealthy can use them to do their bidding

“It tells us there’s a problematic culture developing at high-income levels in charitable giving,” Hackney said. “Something’s out of whack with our system of inequality and our philanthropic systems. Even though it wasn’t an actual charity, they saw philanthropy as a weak space, a place they could arbitrage and take advantage of.”

That’s partly based in reality, said Hackney, who worked in the office of the chief counsel of the IRS before joining the university faculty. The IRS is underfunded and short-staffed. The audit rate is, in general, “really low” and even lower for charities

And philanthropy is indeed increasingly the domain of the very wealthy. Charitable giving reached an all-time high in 2017, but that was largely due to big donations from America’s richest families. In 2018, donations of $1,000 or more increased by 2.6%, while donations in the $250 to $999 range dropped by 4%, and donations of under $250 dropped by 4.4

“Giving is increasing because of larger gifts from richer donors,” said Elizabeth Boris of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. “Smaller and midlevel donors are slowly but surely disappearing — across the board, among all organizations.”

The Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC controlled by House Speaker Paul Ryan, offered mock congratulations to Laura Moser, the Bernie Sanders-aligned Democrat who advanced to a runoff for a Houston-area House seat held by Republican Rep. John Culberson. Ms. Moser had been attacked by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

In the Seventh District, the top fundraiser—nonprofit executive Alex Triantaphyllis—came in fourth. In a Dallas House Democratic primary, the best fundraiser by far was a former Hillary Clinton aide, Ed Meier, who placed behind candidates who hadn’t raised even half the amount he had. He had more than $300,000 on hand as of Feb. 14 but failed to make the runoff.

They won runoff positions in all three of the most closely watched and competitive House Democratic primaries.

One of those women, Gina Oritz Jones, is an openly gay Filipino-American veteran of the Iraq war.

. Lopped off the district was Cherokee County, which favored the president over Hillary Clinton by 50 points last November.

Ossoff nearly won the seat outright during the first vote on April 18, coming just two points short of the necessary 50 percent. Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state, bested 10 GOP rivals to advance to the June 20 runoff.

He initially pledged to "make Trump furious," and a fundraising haul unprecedented for a House race followed: $8.3 million in the first quarter with 95 percent of the donors from outside Georgia. Having quickly overshadowed the rest of his party's field, Ossoff made the sort of strategic pivot that generally typifies presidential contests between the primary season and the general election.

What he talks like is a professional politician, going before the cameras to proclaim that "both parties in Congress waste a lot of your money."

Do voters trust his posturing, she asks, or do they see "the most liberal of the left who are the power behind his campaign"?

"I fully support the Republican Party and important GOP Committees, but I do not support RINOs and fools, and it is not their right to use my likeness or image to raise funds," Trump said in the statement.

"If you control the money, you control the party," Republican donor Dan Eberhart told CNN on Tuesday. "Trump has effectively stunted the RNC, NRCC and NRSC this cycle because they are going to have to spend an awful lot of time worrying about friendly fire from the MAGA crowd."

"The MAGA endorsement is going to loom large this cycle for everyone. When Trump puts his finger on the scales, it may prove decisive in a lot of races," said Eberhart, who said he is considering a Senate run in Arizona. "There is going to be a lot of consternation when Trump backs a different candidate than the NRSC and the NRCC in primary races. Serious people are going to get burned."

The RNC's chief counsel, J. Justin Reimer, told Trump's lawyers the RNC has "every right to refer to public figures" in its political speech and will "continue to do so."

Trump's lawyers also sent the same cease-and-desist request to the NRCC and the NRSC. A spokesman from the NRCC declined to comment and a spokeswoman from the NRSC did not respond to a request for comment.

"The desire is to have it both ways, where you get the former president's voters, not his baggage," said a GOP campaign strategist who requested anonymity to speak candidly about Republican incentives.

As a consequence, Trump's clash with party leaders "will have very little -- if any effect -- on major donors," she told CNN in an interview Tuesday.

"They are less concerned about a former president's agenda, or frankly, making him feel good," she added.

After losing the election last November, Trump amassed millions of dollars for his own political action committee as he promoted falsehoods about election fraud -- instead of plowing funds into twin US Senate races in Georgia. In the end, the Republicans lost the runoffs in early January, along with their majority in the chamber.

"He's all about himself. He's not about building or supporting the party."