Allies spent millions in a sometimes secretive effort to weed out candidates who could cause the House leader trouble or jeopardize GOP victories in November
GOP lobbyist Jeff Miller, one of McCarthy’s closest friends and biggest fundraisers, and Brian O. Walsh, a Republican strategist who works for multiple McCarthy-backed groups, were both involved in an independent effort to oppose Cawthorn as part of a broader project to create a more functioning GOP caucus next year, said the Republicans, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Targeting Cawthorn was part of a larger behind-the-scenes effort by top GOP donors and senior strategists to purge the influence of Republican factions that seek disruption and grandstanding, often at the expense of their GOP colleagues. The political machine around McCarthy has spent millions of dollars this year in a sometimes secretive effort to systematically weed out GOP candidates who could either cause McCarthy trouble if he becomes House speaker or jeopardize GOP victories in districts where more moderate candidate might have a better chance at winning.
The allies close to McCarthy have sometimes taken steps to conceal their efforts, as they did in the Cawthorn case, with money passing from top GOP donors through organizations that do not disclose their donors or have limited public records, federal disclosures show.
In safe Republican districts, controversial Republicans like former New York State party chair Carl Paladino, Florida state Rep. Anthony Sabatini and Trump-endorsed congressional candidate Joe Kent have been targeted after distancing themselves from McCarthy’s leadership and echoing extreme claims. McCarthy’s team has also gone to work to protect several GOP incumbents from far-right challenges, campaign finance records show.
Miller, Walsh and McCarthy’s office declined requests for comment.
McCarthy’s own approach to enforcing unity within his sometimes fractious Republican caucus has been more aggressive than his two immediate predecessors, Reps. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), whose tenures in leadership were marred by dissent and dysfunction. McCarthy has spoken publicly about the need to not just win a majority in the House, but to make sure his party wins “a governing majority.”
“We’re coming out with solutions. If we’re unified in that, even if we have a small majority, we’d be very strong in being able to pass it,” McCarthy said at a March House Republican retreat. “So we want the idea to be so strong that you overcome all the politics that people bring.”
McCarthy has a reputation for caring about politics over policy, but ultimately his fate may lie in the hands of one person: Trump. If Republicans win a small majority in the House, Trump could likely influence enough votes to determine the speakership, GOP strategists say. It’s a major reason McCarthy allies say he has remained close to Trump even when he has grown frustrated with him.
Several Republican members of the House have applauded the efforts to bring more pragmatists into power who will prioritize passing conservative policies over the more disruptive tactics of the House Freedom Caucus. That group of far-right lawmakers has asked for rule changes in the next Congress that would increase their leverage over the rest of the caucus.
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A spokesman for Unite America said the donation was made to support Herrera Beutler. “We affirmatively supported pro-democracy Republicans this primary cycle,” said Chris Deaton, a spokesman for the group.
Olivia Perez-Cubas, a spokesperson for WFW Action, said the group raised money from CLF and other partners to support Herrera Beutler because the group is “dedicated to building and expanding the ranks of GOP women in Congress.”
The complex shuffling of funds through other groups became a pattern in multiple Republican House primaries, where Freedom Caucus-aligned candidates found themselves targeted. A person involved said some of the efforts were coordinated by McCarthy allies. At other times, as in a recent race in Florida’s 8th District, where $1.6 million was spent against Anna Paulina Luna, individual donors decide to intervene on their own.
A group that only came into existence in August, American Liberty Action PAC, spent more than $2.5 million in recent weeks to defeat candidates who questioned the 2020 election and expressed affinity for the Freedom Caucus in their recent campaigns, including Paladino and Sabatini.
Both candidates set off alarm bells for Republican strategists close to McCarthy. Paladino had recently circulated a conspiratorial Facebook post about the cause of the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde and suggested in 2021 that the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler is “the kind of leader we need today.” Sabatini, a friend of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), had been an outspoken critic of McCarthy.
“They would have been legislative terrorists whose goal was fame,” said a person familiar with the effort to stop them.
After Paladino and Sabatini both lost their primaries, American Liberty Action disclosed that it was entirely funded by the Eighteen Fifty-Four Fund and a nonprofit, American Prosperity Alliance, which does not disclose its donors.
Paladino blamed McCarthy and his allies for the spending, which he said only arose because his opponent, Nick Langworthy, made it clear he would be more friendly with GOP leadership.
“Nick sold his soul,” Paladino said. “If I was going to go to Washington, I was going to go as an independent Republican. I just didn’t want to be owned by anybody.”
Sabatini also believed during his campaign that he was being attacked by the Washington establishment.
“Everything is happening behind the scenes, but obviously that is what the money shows,” Sabatini said of the involvement of McCarthy allies. “They don’t want a conservative to win. They want a brainless, spineless robot.”
Trump has so far declined to criticize McCarthy for the primary interventions. People close to both men say they continue to have a close working relationship around House races, despite other tensions, as Trump has prioritized growing the size of the House majority.
The former president notably declined to make an endorsement against Rep. David G. Valadao (R-Calif.), even though he was one of the ten Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in 2021. CLF spent about $800,000 in the primary to help Valadao defeat his GOP rival, Chris Mathys, who ran on a platform of supporting Trump more.
“When your own party spends $300,000 a week before the election attacking you, then you really have to wonder which side are they on,” Mathys said after his defeat, noting that he could not get his calls returned by Trump. “We called 50 times but never got a call back from anyone.”
As in the case of Herrera Beutler, the efforts by McCarthy and his partners have not always been successful. CLF was unable to defeat Sandy Smith, a pro-Trump candidate in North Carolina’s 1st District who faced past allegations of domestic violence. In Arizona, CLF and WFW Action spent about $1 million to support Republican Tanya Wheeless, only to watch her lose the primary to Kelly Cooper, who has challenged the legitimacy of the 2020 election and promised to seek the release of those arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol.
The Cawthorn race became a concern for McCarthy earlier this year, when the freshman member told a podcast about seeing cocaine use in Washington and being invited to sex parties. After meeting with McCarthy over the statements, Cawthorn blamed “the left and the media” for trying to use his comments to divide the GOP. His office did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
But Mark Wetjen, the head of public policy and regulatory strategy at FTX, was invited with his family to McCarthy’s August donor retreat in Wyoming.
