The House speaker battle and weeks of GOP infighting are coming back to haunt House Republicans who relied on Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for significant fundraising and campaign boosting.
When McCarthy sought the speakership in January, Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) warned the Republican conference’s holdouts about the strength of the California Republican’s purse strings, posting on X, “How much money did they take from McCarthy to get elected over the years?”
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Now, after McCarthy was ousted in part due to eight House Republicans in October and the conference went without consensus on a new speaker for three weeks, Van Orden’s reelection campaign may fall victim to the very thing he warned about.
The freshman Wisconsin Republican’s seat is one of 33 being targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2024 election. Van Orden lost his bid in 2020 to former Democratic Rep. Ron Kind but then flipped the district from blue to red for the first time since 1994 by just under 12,000 votes.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has slipped his district’s rating from “likely” Republican to “lean” Republican, putting him one step closer to a toss-up race in a swing district. In its attempts to flip the seat back to blue, the DCCC is noting Van Orden’s support for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), particularly regarding the speaker embracing comments that the 2020 election was stolen.
“More and more light is shining on Derrick Van Orden’s extreme record and inappropriate behavior, and Wisconsin voters are taking note,” DCCC spokeswoman Mallory Payne said in a statement after Van Orden’s Cook Political Report rating was downgraded. “As Van Orden continues to embrace an extreme agenda and bully everyone around him, Wisconsinites will be ready to send him packing next November.”
Van Orden relied heavily on McCarthy’s fundraising when he was House speaker, as did most Republicans. McCarthy’s campaign raised more than 20 times what Johnson hauled in for the 2022 cycle and 2024 cycle so far, Politico reported. In the second quarter, McCarthy hauled in $21.7 million for House Republicans and raised $15.3 million in the last quarter as speaker.
The Wisconsin Republican received over $355,000 from McCarthy and his organizations over the three years that he ran for and held a seat in the House, the Messenger reported. Of the $355,000, $323,000 came from Protect The House 2024 initiative, a group formed to keep the Republican’s narrow majority in the lower chamber. Van Orden also received $30,000 from McCarthy’s Majority Committee leadership PAC throughout his two campaigns.
With McCarthy’s steady cash flow up in the air, Van Orden may need other Republican groups to donate money to his campaign. However, that may be hard to come by, particularly due to his tense relationships with his GOP colleagues.
In July, Van Orden received heavy criticism from Senate leaders, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), for yelling and cursing at Senate pages during a tour of the Capitol. He did not deny the events and did not apologize to the pages, instead stating that the Capitol “should never be treated like a frat house common room.”
“Threatening a congressman with bad press to excuse poor behavior is a reminder of everything that’s wrong with Washington,” Van Orden said at the time after a transcript of the interaction was released. “Luckily, bad press has never bothered me, and if it’s the price I pay to stand up for what’s right, then so be it.”
Since then, he’s been antagonistic to fellow House Republicans, particularly Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who was the leader of the eight GOP members who voted to oust McCarthy. He called Gaetz a “child” after McCarthy’s removal. Though vocally supporting Johnson, Van Orden was also the only House Republican who did not cast a vote for him because he was absent on a trip to Israel in the wake of the Jewish state’s war against Hamas.
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Johnson made significant fundraising hauls for the National Republican Congressional Committee in the days after his speakership election. Five days after receiving the gavel, the NRCC reported a one-day haul of $175,000 for online fundraising and a total weekend haul of $475,000 one day later. Roughly 75% of the total was collected from emails that were signed by Johnson directly.
However, the NRCC’s fundraising has lagged in the almost month after the contentious speakership election. The committee reported raising slightly over $5 million in October, according to Federal Election Commission filings. That’s about half of what the committee raised at the same point in past off-year cycles: about $10 million in October 2019 and $9.8 million in October 2021.
