U.S. Senator David Perdue of Georgia (via flickr – Gage Skidmore)

President Donald Trump this week formally set up a joint fundraising committee with Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), making the incumbent lawmaker part of his massive fundraising machine as Republicans prepare to defend the Senate in 2020.

The committee, which distributes funds to the Trump and Perdue campaigns along with the Republican National Committee, was set up to facilitate a high-dollar fundraiser this month. It’s part of the president’s efforts to raise money for vulnerable Republican senators who are defending him against impeachment, Politico reported.

Perdue, a strong Trump ally who accompanied the president to the World Series, is the first congressional candidate to directly receive support from a Trump-backed fundraising committee. Trump didn’t funnel money to vulnerable senators in 2016, opting to share donor money with the RNC and Republican state party committees.

With $6.3 million in the bank, Perdue already has a massive cash advantage over his Democratic opponents. He and other senators facing tough reelection battles in 2020 are relying heavily on joint fundraising committees to rake in campaign cash. Perdue has already raised $2.2 million from these committees, second among all congressional candidates, and he recently launched another committee with fellow Georgia Republicans and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).

Still, the Trump fundraising boost could propel Perdue and other senators to even larger fundraising hauls. Trump is also urging donors to raise money for vulnerable Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). While each of these lawmakers are outraising their Democratic opponents, they have not caught on with small donors who have powered Trump’s record-breaking campaign so far.

Trump has drawn criticism for directly raising money for senators who would oversee his trial should he be impeached by the Democratic-led House. But he isn’t the first president to organize fundraising committees for congressional candidates who support his agenda.

In 2004, President George W. Bush set up two joint fundraising committees that raised a collective $3.4 million for six Senate candidates and millions more for several House candidates facing election battles that year.

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Each of the Senate candidates getting money from Bush’s committee were at that time strong supporters of the Iraq War, which was still in its infancy. At a reception for soon-to-be Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who received $256,596 from Bush’s committee, Bush praised the representative for his understanding how Iraq was “the central front in the war on terror.” One of the committees’ top recipients, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), then a member of the House, strongly defended Bush’s decision to invade Iraq on the campaign trail.

Recent major presidential campaigns — including Barack Obama, John McCain and Hillary Clinton — opted not to share donor dollars with congressional candidates, leaving the various campaign arms to take on that task. Mitt Romney in 2012 split campaign cash with the campaign arms of House and Senate Republicans, but not with individual candidates.

The amount of money funneled through joint fundraising committees has increased since the Supreme Court’s 2014 McCutcheon v. FEC decision that struck down aggregate limits on the amount an individual can give in an election cycle.

Although sitting presidents don’t often organize joint fundraising committees for House or Senate candidates, they often help raise money for members of their party by appearing at fundraising events.

Trump is doing his part to help House Republicans, hosting a $35,000-per-person fundraiser this week for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) joint fundraising committee at his Washington, D.C., hotel this week. McCarthy’s committee is on fire to start 2020, raising nearly $26 million.

These fundraisers help Trump, too, as joint fundraising committees pay Trump properties to host the events. Political committees have spent roughly $20 million at Trump-owned properties since the 2016 election, with $16.8 million coming from Trump-affiliated committees. Forty-eight different Republican members of Congress, including Perdue and Tillis, reported spending donor dollars at Trump properties this cycle, with McCarthy among the top spenders.



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