Rep. Devin Nunes raised nearly $4 million during the first quarter of this year, pushing his campaign war chest to roughly $8.8 million, double the amount he raised in the final quarter of 2019.
The California Republican, a prominent supporter of President Trump during the Russia investigation and throughout impeachment proceedings, has continued to raise money at a robust clip despite the chill on the economy caused by the coronavirus pandemic. In the previous fundraising quarter, Nunes raised $2.1 million and reported $7.2 million in the bank. Nunes has become a top GOP fundraiser with the sort of small, grassroots donors who back Trump, although he might not need to spend much of his campaign cash this November.
With dozens of incumbents to defend to protect their House majority, Democrats have not yet committed to spending the significant resources it would take to weaken Nunes in his Republican-leaning Central Valley district, let alone oust him. Larry Sabato, a political prognosticator at the University of Virginia, recently shifted his “Crystal Ball” rating of Nunes’s race from “likely” to “safe Republican.”
The congressman is facing Democrat Phil Arballo in the fall. His first-quarter fundraising results, due to be filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, were confirmed by a Republican source close to his campaign.
Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, was an early GOP voice calling for an investigation into the FBI’s use of special, secretive search warrants authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That investigation, conducted by U.S. Attorney John Durham at the behest of Attorney General William Barr, has already turned up some malfeasance by the FBI regarding its use of FISA warrants.
Nunes’s outspokenness on this and other controversies related to Trump has made the congressman a darling of conservative media and turned him into one of the most prolific GOP fundraisers of the past few years. He is investing in robust field and data programs proprietary to his campaign — in case Democrats decide to target him.
Nunes, 46, spent a majority of his nine terms in Congress as an obscure member focused on issues pertaining to his agricultural, Republican-leaning district in California’s Central Valley. But his role in defending Trump against allegations that his campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign, and his questioning of the FBI’s investigation methods and use of FISA warrants, catapulted him into the national spotlight.
