Rep. Devin Nunes raised $2.7 million in the second quarter, counting funds collected by all political committees under his control, with the California Republican’s 2022 reelection campaign set to report a $1.1 million haul with $11.5 million in cash on hand.
Nunes, the top Republican on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, is raising the majority of his money from grassroots donors, who give in small amounts online or through the mail — part of a deliberate shift away from relying on contributions from lobbyists and corporate political action committees.
Nunes altered his fundraising strategy earlier this year after some lobbyists and corporate PACs stopped donating to Republicans who objected to President Joe Biden’s victory in certification votes held Jan. 6. However, the strength of his national grassroots fundraising operation accelerated during former President Donald Trump’s tenure.
Information about Nunes’s second-quarter fundraising and strategy was shared with the Washington Examiner by sources close to the congressman’s operation.
Nunes is angling to become the top Republican on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, perhaps Congress’s most powerful panel, beginning in 2023, when the GOP could be in the majority. He is the most senior member of his party on Ways and Means behind the current ranking Republican, Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, who is retiring next year.
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Nunes is a close ally of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, as they represent neighboring central California districts. But to grease his ascension on Ways and Means and help Republican colleagues who might have taken fundraising hits by the loss of contributions from corporate PACs, the congressman has put his grassroots fundraising operation to work for others in the GOP conference and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
House Republicans have to pay dues to the NRCC. Nunes’s assessment for the two-year election cycle is $850,000, which he paid in full by June 30 — well ahead of schedule. He plans to shift another $1.1 million to the committee, approximately by Election Day next year.
Meanwhile, from April 1 to June 30, Nunes donated about $175,000 to individual House Republicans through his leadership PAC.
Nunes is a big Trump supporter and spent the former president’s term defending him against many scandals and accusations, especially allegations he colluded with Russia to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign. Then known as a pragmatic Republican, the effort turned Nunes into a conservative folk hero and darling of conservative media.
After Nunes tested the waters with grassroots donors nationally and liked the response, he invested in an operation to appeal to them on a grand scale. The money poured in. This election cycle, Nunes has put his various political fundraising entities under the umbrella of a victory fund to streamline fundraising and more efficiently invest in his political operation.
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Decennial reapportionment has yet to play out in California. But redistricting in the state is handled by an independent commission, and Nunes, closing in on 20 years in Congress, is not expecting jarring changes to the boundaries of the 22nd Congressional District he represents.
Last year, Trump topped Biden in Nunes’s district by 5.5 percentage points. The congressman won reelection by a much more comfortable margin of 8.4 points.
