Free Republic

As he travels the country publicly backing Republican candidates and conservative causes ahead of the midterm elections, former Vice President Mike Pence has also been quietly huddling with donors and building a political operation that could serve as a springboard to a 2024 presidential campaign.

Many of his aides and close allies are veteran Washington hands who have profited from advising big corporations. The Sanders-Warren wing of the party is not happy.

WASHINGTON — It was one of the few issues on which President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. disagreed — how far to go in limiting the influence of lobbyists in government. The vice president privately complained that his boss’s effort to slam shut the revolving door between K Street and the administration would deprive it of experienced talent, and he bristled when Mr. Obama’s aides tried to block him from hiring a well-connected Washington operator who had lobbied for pharmaceutical and insurance companies, credit agencies and others. Eight years later, that same confidant, Steve Ricchetti, is...

Rupert Murdoch’s son James Murdoch reportedly donated $615,000 to the Biden Victory Fund last month. According to New York Times reporter Kenneth P. Vogel, who cited the Federal Election Commission (FEC) receipts, James Murdoch and his wife Kathryn Murdoch donated $615,000 each to the fund supporting former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election campaign.

Early in his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump dismissed political data as an “overrated” tool. But after he won the Republican nomination, his team began building a database that offers a pipeline into the heart of the party’s base, a comprehensive list including the email addresses and cellphone numbers of as many as 20 million supporters. Now, consultants close to the Trump campaign are ramping up efforts to put that database — by far the most sought-after in Republican politics — to use, offering it for rent to candidates, conservative groups and even businesses. It is an arrangement that has...

President Donald Trump’s budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, expressed confidence to Republican donors Saturday that the party would overcome a Democratic “movement of hate” in November, but he acknowledged Republicans could lose races where they have nominated candidates who are not seen as “likable” enough, like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Candidates’ aides and allies want anti-Trump vendors barred from lucrative general-election contracts. Donald Trump’s campaign is considering hitting his Republican enemies where it hurts: Their wallets. As Trump moves to work in closer concert with the Republican National Committee apparatus, some campaign aides and allies are pushing him to block lucrative party contracts from consultants who worked to keep him from winning the nomination, according to four sources familiar with the discussions. “The Never Trump vendors and supporters shouldn’t be in striking distance of the RNC, any of its committees or anyone working on behalf of Donald Trump,” said a...

As Donald Trump picks up momentum, the chances of a well-funded assault to block him from the Republican presidential nomination are dramatically dwindling, according to interviews with about a dozen donors and operatives who are appalled by the billionaire real estate showman's campaign. The party's elite donor class has mostly closed its checkbooks to groups dedicated to stopping Trump, while the outfits that have built massive reserves are increasingly deciding to forgo anti-Trump campaigns, despite widespread fears that he is making a mockery of conservatism and could undermine Republicans up and down the ballot. The deepest-pocketed operation on the right,...

During a closed-door gathering of major donors in Southern California on Monday, the political operation spearheaded by the Koch brothers unveiled a significant new weapon in its rapidly expanding arsenal — a super PAC called Freedom Partners Action Fund. The new group aims to spend more than $15 million in the 2014 midterm campaigns — part of a much larger spending effort expected to total $290 million, sources told POLITICO., The vast network of political nonprofit groups they helped build has mostly funneled its unprecedented political spending into issue-based campaigns that usually slam Democrats for supporting big government but seldom...

Glenn Beck worked the crowd like a preacher at a rally this month in Louisville, Ky., declaring that God had responded to conservatives’ prayers by sending a slate of tea party candidates to wrest control of the Republican Party from Mitch McConnell. But there was a more earthly benefit to the arrangement that brought Beck to the rally. It was organized by the tea party nonprofit group FreedomWorks, which had endorsed the candidates — and which has paid more than $6 million in recent years to have Beck promote the group, its initiatives and events. ..............