The Republican National Committee raised a record-breaking $13.8 million in March, pushing its total haul for the first quarter of 2018 to $39 million.
So far, the RNC has raised $171.5 million in the 2017-2018 cycle.
“Another month of record-breaking fundraising confirms what many in the mainstream media are ignoring: Americans are doing better under Republican leadership,” said RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. “Our country has more jobs, a growing economy, and higher wages, thanks to President Trump and Republicans in Congress.
“With our strong grassroots support, we will continue to work with the President and Republicans in Congress to build upon these achievements,” she said.
The $13.8 million raised in March alone is the most the RNC has ever raised in a March of a non-presidential year.
The RNC says it plans to spend a total of $250 million this cycle on a “permanent, data-driven, ground game to defend our majorities in the House and the Senate.”
But it’s not all good news for the GOP.
“A whopping 43 House Republicans raised less money than Democratic challengers in the first three months of 2018 — nearly the same number of stragglers the GOP had at the end of last year, according to POLITICO’s analysis of the latest Federal Election Commission filings. An overlapping group of 16 Republican incumbents already have less cash on hand than Democratic challengers, up from the end of 2017, despite hopes that tax reform would open more donor wallets,” Politico reported on Thursday.
“The members who are getting outraised at this stage of the election cycle are the ones who present the biggest risk to the Republican majority,” said Ken Spain, a Republican consultant who served as the National Republican Congressional Committee’s communications director in 2010. “Fundraising is an outgrowth of intensity, so I think this tells you that Republicans are clearly swimming upstream in a challenging election cycle.”
The outraised incumbents include some of the most vulnerable Republicans in the country, like Reps. Dana Rohrabacher in California, Jason Lewis in Minnesota and Rod Blum in Iowa. But they also include Republicans who may not have expected to face tough races a year ago but have suddenly found themselves facing energetic and well-financed opponents, like the North Carolina duo of Robert Pittenger and Ted Budd.
It’s a mirror image of this time in 2010, seven months before Republicans picked up 63 House seats during President Barack Obama’s first term. At this point in the 2010 election cycle, 35 Democratic incumbents were outraised by Republican challengers, and more than a third lost their races in November.
Some incumbents “still haven’t gotten the memo,” said Chris LaCivita, a Republican strategist. “Members, sometimes, get lost in this perception that everyone in the district knows how great they’re doing. And then they’re surprised on Election Day when they lose.”