House Republicans' fundraising outpaces incumbent Democrats' in midterm battlegrounds
'House Republicans are running scared – so they're turning to their D.C. Party Bosses to bail them out with big checks after voting for the largest cut to Medicaid and food assistance in history to pay for billionaire tax breaks,' DCCC spokesperson Viet Shelton said in a statement.
Vulnerable Democratic incumbents largely put up solid fundraising numbers, but they were not as eye-popping. Among the 13 Democrats running for reelection in districts Trump won last year, Rep. Marie Glusenkamp Perez (D-Wa.) led the way with just over $900,000, while the median quarterly fundraising was $689,000.
A handful of Democrats who lagged in fundraising could face bigger problems: Texas Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar, who both raised less than $500,000, are among the members the GOP hopes to squeeze in its mid-cycle redistricting effort, which could make their seats even more difficult for Democrats to hold. Cuellar loaned his campaign $200,000, according to his FEC report.
But there's still plenty of time for Democrats to catch up, and they point to strong fundraising by Democratic challengers to Republican incumbents as a positive sign. For instance, Rebecca Cooke, who is challenging Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisc.), raised $938,000 and had more than $1.2 million on hand. Van Orden raised $1.2 million and had nearly $1.7 million cash.
'They've got a [joint fundraising agreement] that Mike Johnson raised for them. They didn't raise it themselves, and they didn't raise it from individual donors,' said purple-district Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.). 'I don't worry that we're not going to have the resources to compete with a very unpopular party.'
Meanwhile, several Republicans that Democrats are targeting in Trumpier districts pulled in relatively low fundraising totals — Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) raised just $53,000, Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) brought in $142,000 and Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) brought in $253,000. They each hold districts that Trump won by between 5 and 18 points last year, but Democrats still see them as worth targeting, anticipating voter backlash to Trump's domestic policy agenda.
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If you listened to the rest of the media — both mainstream and social media — you would think Donald Trump was on the skids, that MAGA was at last turning on the president over the so-called Epstein Files. But nothing could be further from the truth, according to polling the president crowed about over the weekend and, also, according to history. Every single time his enemies count him out, Trump roars back with a vengeance. The latest effort last week to try to smear him as a sexual deviant and damage his marriage by tying him to child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein is a case in point. The Wall Street Journal story Thursday was tame by comparison to the lurid rumors and wishful thinking that ripped through Washington, DC, and newly anti-Trump Elon Musk's X all week. The story claimed Trump had contributed a letter to a leather-bound book created for Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003 by the pervert financier's gal pal Ghislaine Maxwell. The typewritten letter reportedly involved an imaginary conversation between Trump and Epstein that included the lines 'Enigmas never age' and 'Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.' In its description of the letter, which it did not publish, the WSJ said there was also a doodle of a naked woman and Trump's signature. Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture, calling it 'FAKE,' before launching a $10 billion libel action. Trump said: 'These are not my words, not the way I talk.' Ditched 'creep' long ago I can't express my own views about the merits or otherwise of the story for legal reasons since The Post and the WSJ share the same parent company. But I can say it's a nothing burger. So what if Trump wrote the letter, or not? The date is 2003, five years before Epstein was convicted of prostituting a child and was registered as a sex offender, before the world found out what a monster he really was. It's no secret that Trump was chummy with Epstein in his heyday in Manhattan and Palm Beach, when the late pervert was a social-climbing financier throwing star-studded parties. Epstein was a fixture of elite East Coast social circles in the 1990s. It would be strange if Trump didn't know him. But the saga shows Trump in a good light because, years before Epstein's 2008 arrest and sweetheart plea deal, Trump banned him from his Mar-a-Lago club 'for being a creep,' says White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. According to legal filings and a 2020 book by lawyer Bradley Edwards, who represented several Epstein victims, Trump threw out Epstein around 2004, for sexually assaulting the daughter of a friend and Mar-a-Lago member. The New York Times claims Trump and Epstein also fell out over business around the same time when they competed to buy a house in Palm Beach, forcing up the price and annoying Trump. 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Maurene Comey was fired Wednesday, one day before the WSJ story was published, and one day after the White House was alerted to the story. She told colleagues in an email that her ouster was 'unexpected' and unexplained. Comey was also the lead prosecutor of Ghislaine Maxwell in 2021 over her role in Epstein's sex trafficking. According to the WSJ, the 'birthday book' Maxwell compiled was in the files examined by the DOJ during the investigations of Epstein and Maxwell. Every week, Post columnist Miranda Devine sits down for exclusive and candid conversations with the most influential disruptors in Washington. Subscribe here! There is no indication of anything more than a circumstantial link between Comey's ouster and the WSJ story, but the timing is intriguing. Like everything else with Epstein, people are inclined to see links where there are none. After the WSJ story broke Thursday, Trump asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to release 'any and all pertinent grand jury testimony, subject to court approval' that was gathered by New York federal prosecutors in 2019. But just because people associated with Epstein doesn't make them complicit in his crimes. The DOJ and FBI have said there is no 'Epstein client list,' as in a list of men to whom he pimped out underage girls. What does exist is Epstein's 'little black book,' bulging with 1,971 names, uncovered in 2009 when his butler tried to sell it. It has been the subject of intense reporting, but you can't judge the names guilty just because Epstein had their number. 'There are a lot of names associated with Epstein that had nothing to do with Epstein's conduct,' broadcaster Bill O'Reilly said last week, quoting Trump. 'They maybe had lunch with him or maybe had some correspondence. 'If that name gets out, those people are destroyed — because there's not going to be any context. The media doesn't care about context — so you can't do that.' Many of the now-adult victims of Epstein were cheated of their chance to confront their tormentor in court because he died in pretrial detention. But the judge allowed them to testify in the Manhattan federal courtroom where Epstein would have been tried, to tell the world what his sexual depravity meant. I was in that courtroom in August 2019 to witness this display of feminine courage as 17 young women lined up at a microphone, heads held high, to place their suffering on the record. Six others had their lawyers read out letters. Through tears and shaky voices, they told their stories so we would understand the toll of broken trust. 'I was nothing more than a teenage prostitute. I was his slave,' said one victim who was a 16-year-old virgin when she says Epstein raped her. The most outspoken victim, Virginia Giuffre, who reportedly committed suicide three months ago, told the court: 'Epstein did not act alone.' Get Miranda's latest take Sign up for Devine Online, the newsletter from Miranda Devine Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Want even more news? Check out more newsletters Giuffre, who fell prey to Epstein at 16, alleged she was 'passed around like a platter of fruit' to 'powerful men,' including Prince Andrew, who settled out of court after she sued him for sexual abuse. She accused other powerful men, but never Trump. In fact, in her 2015 memoir, she explicitly ruled out Trump. As much as the liberal media is salivating at the prospect of another Get-Trump pile-on, there is just nothing there. 'X is not reality' Meanwhile, the same media is ignoring the latest bombshell revelation in the Russiagate scandal unveiled last week by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, where the evidence of wrongdoing by President Barack Obama and his henchmen exists and is compelling. Trump is having the last laugh, anyway, as CNN pollster Harry Enten pointed out last week. 'If anything Donald Trump's approval rating has gone up since this whole Epstein saga started,' Enten said. 'He is at the apex or close to it in terms of his popularity [with Republicans], Epstein Files complaints or not. Who knew Twitter and X are not reality.' It just goes to prove the noisiest loudmouths who claim to represent MAGA just represent themselves.
