“The fundraising has gone in the toilet”: The GOP primary is wiping out the RNC’s coffers

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has a fundraising problem.

Amid a range of heavy expenditures, as it gears up for the 2024 run at reclaiming the White House and Senate, RNC fundraising has significantly slumped, leaving the national party with less than $12 million at its disposal. According to The Daily Beast, the RNC had $80.5 million in the bank at the start of the 2022 midterm cycle, but that number has plummeted to $11.8 million — less than half of the Democratic National Committee’s $25.4 million — so far this year. One anonymous RNC member told the outlet the committee was “raising record dollars when Donald Trump was president.”

While Trump is still garnering the most financial interest among Republicans, without the ability to use him to curry favor with donors, in tandem with the array of Republican primary challengers to support, the committee’s fundraising has declined. At this time in 2019, one year ahead of the last presidential election, the RNC had $46.6 million — a figure that is four times the current amount in its coffers.

“The fundraising has gone in the toilet,” the RNC member told the Beast. “They’re not raising money.”

In the 2021-2022 midterm cycle, the committee had raised over $335 million, but so far this year, it has only raised about $50.8 million. Despite outraising the DNC by $30 million, according to FEC data, its spending on legal costs, fees and payments for services, and transfers to affiliates has amounted to $401.4 million, surpassing the DNC total by over $85 million. The lack of funding has left many RNC members concerned about the party’s financial future ahead of 2024, The Daily Beast reports, noting that the RNC’s expenses for the 2020 election came out above $830 million.