One day after rioters ransacked the Capitol in a bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Republican lobbyist Geoff Verhoff sent a searing email to top GOP officials.
Verhoff, a bundler who works at the lobbying firm Akin Gump, wrote on Jan. 7 that he was appalled by President Donald Trump and the rioters, and he was resigning as co-chair of the Republican National Committee’s finance committee, according to a person with knowledge of the email. He could no longer associate himself with Trump and his movement, he wrote, and he was distressed by what his party had become.
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But when Trump spoke to some of the party’s top donors last month, at a retreat convened at the Breakers resort in Palm Beach, Fla., by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Verhoff was one of the attendees, according to two people present and a list of attendees obtained by The Washington Post. He has also recently given sizable sums to Republican candidates, including three members of Congress who voted to overturn the results of the election, federal records show. Verhoff and a spokesman for Akin Gump did not respond to requests for comment.
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After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, scores of donors and companies made public or private statements like Verhoff’s, vowing to withhold or rethink their funding for the GOP. But a review of attendees at elite donor retreats, financial filings and interviews with party officials, donors and fundraisers indicates the GOP has had a booming financial year, retaining significant support from many Fortune 500 companies and the city’s most influential lobbying shops, including some contributors who initially balked in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack.
Together, the RNC, NRSC and the National Republican Congressional Committee have taken in more than their Democratic counterparts in 2021 — $304 million, compared with $295 million for the Democrats, according to federal campaign finance disclosures. The RNC alone has raised more than $120 million this year, while Trump separately has more than $100 million on hand.
Republicans have also far outpaced their own 2013 and 2017 numbers, when they raised $135 million and $215 million, respectively, in the first nine months of those years.
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“We’re still pretty far out from 2022, and people are going gangbusters,” said Lisa Spies, a prominent GOP fundraiser. “The events are just nonstop, which is great.” Spies said that some people “wanted to make a statement” after Jan. 6, but things have changed.
Some companies that had suspended giving after the insurrection, such as Valero Energy, have resumed funding the GOP, including to lawmakers who objected to certifying the election; others, such as Google and Verizon, have continued to boycott individual lawmakers who voted against certification but are giving to Republican committees.
Republicans have built their fundraising advantage as the party seeks to reclaim the House and Senate next year, and as Trump, a possible 2024 contender, remains the dominant force in the party.
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Republican Party officials, donors and fundraisers say donations have rebounded for several reasons: The party has gotten better at attracting lower-dollar grass-roots efforts, largely fueled by Trump and his supporters; antipathy toward President Biden has surged in recent months; donors and corporations believe the party has a chance to take the House and the Senate and want to be on good terms with potential majority leaders. The widespread support for the GOP represents a realization by companies that they face little risk of a public backlash in much of the country for such contributions, experts said.
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“Part of the reason corporations feel comfortable in returning to their support for what some have called the ‘sedition caucus’ is that half of the country doesn’t look at them as seditious, and that gives corporate brands some comfort that they won’t be punished for funding people who objected to Biden’s election on Jan. 6,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a specialist in election law and corporate governance at Stetson University College of Law and the author of the book “Political Brands.”
Democrats, for their part, see reason for optimism in fundraising dynamics one year out from the midterms. “I’d rather be us than them,” said Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, citing the Republican Party’s reliance on Trump to raise money.
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One donor who has contributed to members of both parties, and who has recently given to Republican committees, said he thought more recent events, including the paralysis on Capitol Hill over the summer, had shifted attention away from Jan. 6 among political benefactors.
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“My guess is that as tragic and ridiculous as that day was, and as bad as it was, it was always hard to get the facts because both sides were spinning everything as fast as they could of what all happened,” said the donor, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address sensitive matters candidly. “I personally felt it was an extreme event that was not really reflective of the Republican Party enough to create issues.”
A senior Republican official said the party and other committees have even lost some donors who argued they did not do enough to defend Trump’s false fraud claims. “We’ve lost more from not doing enough to quote-unquote stop the steal than Jan. 6,” this person said.
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Just seven months after the insurrection, it was clear to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that top donors were still on board. That’s when he held an annual invite-only retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in August, and the events were packed with corporation executives and big givers.
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In January, McCarthy — who voted against certifying the election results — had publicly accused Trump of responsibility for the attack and proposed censuring him. Companies such as Valero Energy and Comcast had suspended or made changes to their political giving, a sign that Republican leaders, at least for a brief time, were under pressure to get over their acquiescence to Trump.
But as McCarthy met with his benefactors in Wyoming, he believed what he called the “rocky time” had begun to ebb, he told The Post. And top lobbyists for both of those companies were among the dozens feted over campfire drinks, ax-tossing and elaborate meals celebrating his biggest givers, according to people familiar with the event and event materials reviewed by The Post. (Spokespeople for Valero and Comcast did not respond to requests for comment on their attendance.)
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Other companies whose representatives were listed as “participants” include UPS, Citadel, Altria, and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, among more than 100 others, according to a list obtained by The Post.
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Most of the speakers at the elite McCarthy retreat, according to an agenda item, were Cabinet members who served under Trump’s administration. Several attendees described the mood as optimistic, with McCarthy telling those gathered that his party would take back the House. RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel was in Jackson Hole along with former vice president Mike Pence, according to attendees.
A few weeks later, many of the same lobbyists and corporations trekked to the Breakers in Palm Beach, where they listened to Trump at a top-donor fundraiser for the NRSC. An agenda from the October event offered top donors and corporations “pinas by the pool,” courtyard cocktail receptions, industry parlors on the Ocean Lawn and golf on the Ocean Course. There were more than 250 attendees, including representatives from Delta, Aflac, Lowe’s, Boston Scientific, The Carlyle Group, General Motors, Facebook, FedEx, AT&T, Occidental Petroleum, and Enterprise Holdings, according to documents distributed to attendees, who mingled with senators and their top aides.
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Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.), the NRSC chairman, has visited more than 30 states, according to his office, often spending entire weeks traveling the country to fundraise. His team has taken in $76 million, compared with $67 million for their Democratic counterparts, and a spokesman said he has brought in more than 300 new donors to the NRSC. Scott’s team has been determined to disprove critics who said he could not raise money after voting not to certify the election, and Scott has offered to talk to donors and corporations individually about his vote, a spokesman said.
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Inside the NRSC office, staffers printed out a Jan. 11 tweet from a New York Times reporter saying fellow Republicans believed Scott would have trouble fundraising because of his vote and blew it up on the walls to inspire staff to prove other Republicans wrong.
In February and March, Democrats outraised the NRSC in the aftermath of Jan. 6, but the GOP committee has since surged back. “He’ll get on the phone with anyone, at any time of day,” Chris Hartline, the NRSC communications director, said of Scott.
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Many of the companies are trying to thread the needle — financially supporting Republicans, but not explicitly supporting ones who voted not to certify.
Spies said many of her donors separate giving to Republicans and giving to Trump. “It’s not that it has been forgotten. What happened was horrible, and we’re reminding of it almost every day. But people are not focused on Donald Trump right now. Giving to a Republican does not mean you are supporting Donald Trump,” she said. “People are not going to write checks to the fringe people.”
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After Jan. 6, Charles Schwab, the multinational financial services company headquartered in Westlake, Tex., announced it was discontinuing its PAC, saying it wished to abstain from partisan politics after the violence at the Capitol. “In light of a divided political climate and an increase in attacks on those participating in the political process, we believe a clear and apolitical position is in the best interest of our clients, employees, stockholders and the communities in which we operate,” a company statement explained.
But the company’s founder and chairman has continued to support GOP leaders and party committees.
Charles R. Schwab is the single biggest contributor so far this cycle to the McCarthy Victory Fund, a PAC supporting McCarthy. He donated more than $366,000 in March, according to Federal Election Commision records. The same month, he donated more than $200,000 each to the NRSC and NRCC.
Of major contributions from Schwab himself, a company spokesman said, “The chairman is his own person.” Schwab’s philanthropy, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, did not respond to a request for comment.
Companies still withholding donations from individual GOP lawmakers — while contributing to Republican committees that disburse funds as they see fit — maintain that this approach is consistent with their initial promises. Google and Verizon defended the practice. A Google spokesman said the company still does not give individually to candidates who voted against certification.
“Earlier this year, we said that we would stop giving to the 147 lawmakers who would not certify the election. We have stood by that statement,” Verizon spokesman Richard Young said.
Many of the other companies did not respond to requests for comment.
The distinction some companies are drawing — between donating to individual objectors and to the party committees that help fund their reelection campaigns — is meaningless “if the money ends up in the hands of the objectors,” Torres-Spelliscy said. “Having money go through committees and leadership PACs to members of Congress who objected — it’s a classic lack of transparency in money in politics.”