Billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer plans to spend at
least $100 million on leftist politics in 2018. Rather than just giving
directly to Democratic candidates and organizations, Steyer is building a
parallel structure that could give his preferred candidates an important boost
as the Koch brothers, deep pocket Republican donors are scaling back their
support for the Trump-era GOP.
Politico
reports that Steyer is pouring his cash into organizations such as NextGen
America, Need to Impeach and his For Our Future PAC as well as individual
candidates and clean energy ballot initiatives in Arizona and Nevada. Steyer’s
main two organizations have almost 1,000 staffers and another 2,000 volunteers.
The groups have the potential to sway close elections. Need
to Impeach has already identified nearly 700,000 infrequent voters in the 63
most competitive House districts from its email list. The list totals more than
5.5 million people.
“Our list is bigger than the NRA’s — and we’re going to make
sure that it votes that way in 2018,” said Kevin Mack, the group’s lead
strategist.
Steyer’s focus on impeachment runs counter to the
conventional wisdom. Internal polling found that only 32 percent of Democrats
wanted candidates to avoid talking about impeachment while 59 percent were in favor
of using the possibility of impeachment as an election issue. Democratic
leaders feared a Republican backlash if Democrats campaigned on impeachment,
but Steyer’s polling of Republicans showed that only 21 percent were worried
that a Democrat-controlled House would impeach Trump.
These numbers may be explained by the fact that Democrats
are far more likely to take control of the House than the Senate. House
Democrats could impeach Trump, but a Republican Senate would be unlikely to
remove him from office. If Trump was removed from office, Vice President Pence would
become president, arguably giving congressional conservatives a boost.
“There’s all this concern in Washington that impeachment is
going to rile up Republicans, but our numbers show the opposite. … It’s time to
get past the establishment talking points and get to what’s really going to win
elections,” Mack said, noting that the “21 percent of Republicans… aren’t going
to vote for us anyway.”
As Steyer’s spending ramps up, the largest Republican donors
are closing their wallets. The Koch brothers announced over the weekend that
they regretted supporting some candidates who were disappointing in their
support for the brothers’ libertarian principles.
“We're going to be much stricter,” Charles
Koch said. Koch added that their network of organizations would also “hold
people responsible for their commitments.”
The Kochs had previously planned to invest $400 million in
the 2018 election cycle, but Mr. Koch hinted that those plans might change,
saying, “Where we invest is where we find an opportunity where our capabilities
can make a difference, and so we'll engage in politics to the degree in which
it's really moving our overall agenda. If we don't see that, then we'll go into
these other areas.”
Even more troublesome for Republicans, Koch said that his
network would consider supporting moderate or conservative Democrats.
“What I'm OK with are policies that will move us toward a
society of mutual benefit, equal rights, where everybody has the opportunity to
realize their potential,” said Koch. “So, I don't care what initials are in front
or after somebody's name.” He added, “We would love for there to be more
Democrats who support these issues.”
Already, Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-backed group, has
publicly praised Heidi
Heitkamp (D-N.D) for supporting a Dodd-Frank reform bill and Joe Manchin
(D-W.V.) for agreeing to meet with President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee,
Brett Kavanaugh.
President Trump responded to the Koch announcement in
characteristic fashion. In a series of tweets,
the president called the Kochs “a total joke” with a “highly
overrated” network. The president says he “never sought their support
because I don’t need their money,” but other Republican candidates who are not
independently wealthy will certainly miss the Koch money.
Originally published
on The
Resurgent
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