Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the fourth-ranking House Republican, will move Tuesday to expand her leadership role, with a detailed accounting of her fundraising activities on behalf of her colleagues.
McMorris Rodgers, the House Republican Conference chairman from Washington state, ended 2016 with a depleted campaign account and political action committee running on fumes. President Trump considered her for Interior secretary, leading some Republicans to assume she might step down from leadership or retire at the end of this term.
That was never her intention, aides say. McMorris Rodgers, 48, spent more on her re-election in 2016 than usual in an effort to keep her winning percentage as high as possible amid an uncertain environment for the GOP. She won a seventh term with 59.6 percent of the vote. With that behind her, McMorris Rodgers has been busy.
In August, she delivered $750,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP campaign arm, through a mixture of transfers from her camapign account and money raised directly to the NRCC. Combined, it was the second highest injection of cash to the NRCC from a GOP leader that month, her aides said.
That brings her total transferred or raised to the NRCC for the year to $1.3 million. For all of 2015, the last off-year, she transferred or raised just $570,000. Additionally:
- McMorris Rodgers oversaw fundraising for an event in Seattle for her state’s GOP delegation that was headlined by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. It raised more than $1 million.
- In the 2016 election cycle, counting transfers to the NRCC, donations to Republican candidates and incumbents and other fundraising assistance, such as headlining events, McMorris Rodgers raised a total of $4.9 million.
This fall, meanwhile, she plans an active political schedule to boost fellow Republicans. She recently headlined a fundraiser for freshman Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., at Lambeau Field in Greenbay, Wis., built around an NFL game between the Greenbay Packers and Seattle Seahawks. This coming weekend, she’ll lead Rep. Karen Handel, R-Ga., on a fundraising swing through Texas.
Handel won the closely watched special House election in June for the Sixth Congressional District in suburban Atlanta.
