Angry GOP donors close their wallets

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/05/republican-donors-trump-mcconnell-anger-243449

By ALEX ISENSTADT and GABRIEL DEBENEDETTI at Politico

 

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The backlash is threatening to deprive Republicans of resources just as they're gearing up for the 2018 midterms. Party officials are so alarmed that North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who oversees fundraising for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told his colleagues at a recent conference meeting that donations had fallen off a cliff after the Obamacare flop. The committee’s haul plummeted to just $2 million in July and August, less than half of what it raised in June.

"When you’re in a business and you tell your stakeholders you’re going to build a building or something, you have to follow through," said Houston-based energy executive Dan Eberhart. "I can’t borrow money to build a building and then not follow through, which is what these guys are doing.” He said he's spoken to four Republican senators over the past month to express his displeasure, mostly over the party's failure to repeal Obamacare.

Behind the scenes, the GOP has begun to try to smooth things over with its most important givers. On Monday, Trump met with the party’s most prominent donor, Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who has privately expressed frustration that the president hasn't moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And in the wake of an establishment-backed candidate’s loss in Alabama, a top McConnell political lieutenant, Steven Law, held a series of frank discussions with key benefactors.

Some of the donors are giving lawmakers an earful. Bruce Rastetter, an Iowa agribusiness mogul who has funded a long list of Republican elected officials, said he had informed his state’s two GOP senators, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, that he would not donate to Republican senators “unless they pass new legislation or get new leadership.”

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