WASHINGTON — Saul Anuzis, a tea party leader who advised Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, plans to vote for President Donald Trump next year — but that didn’t stop him from donating to Marianne Williamson after last week’s Democratic primary debate.

And he’s not the only Republican stocking the campaign coffers of Oprah’s spiritual guru. Not because they’re rooting for her to win, but in hopes of keeping her on stage in future debates.

Republicans say they’re just enjoying a bit of campaign fun. Williamson declined to respond, and it’s impossible to know how much money she’s received from people who don’t actually want her to win the White House.

Jeff Roe, a Houston-based GOP consultant and Cruz's 2016 campaign manager, set the mischief in motion shortly after the debate, when he called on Republicans to donate $1 to Williamson to help ensure she qualifies for future debates. To clinch a spot in the third debate in September, candidates need at least 130,000 individual donors and 2% support in multiple polls.

"I was just struck by how looney the policies they are debating are. There is no difference between what she believes and what the top tier candidates believe, not a shred of difference, but at least she is entertaining," Roe said by email. "I figured if I have to watch this crap I should at least enjoy the view and she just makes me happy."

Roe said several hundred people have sent him messages via Facebook, Twitter and text, claiming they had heeded his call. Some included screenshots showing their donations.

Roe has a reputation as a bare-knuckles campaign operative. Under his hand, Cruz's campaign photoshopped an image of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio with President Barack Obama and spread a rumor that Ben Carson was dropping out of the presidential race on the night of the Iowa caucuses.

Williamson's spokeswoman, Patricia Ewing, declined to comment on Roe's tweet and the effort to prop up her campaign with support from GOP donors.

During a debate most memorable for California Sen. Kamala Harris's takedown of former Vice President Joe Biden over his views on school busing in the 1970s, Williamson still managed to deliver some of the most viral moments.

Asked what she would do first if she became president, she said, "My first call is to the prime minister of New Zealand, who said that her goal is to make New Zealand the place where it's the best place in the world for a child to grow up. And I would tell her, 'Girlfriend, you are so wrong.' Because the United States of America is going to be the best place in the world for a child to grow up."

She also raised eyebrows by arguing that rivals with detailed plans are going about it all wrong.

"If you think we're going to beat Donald Trump by just having all these plans, you've got another thing coming," she said. "Because he didn't win by saying he had a plan. He won by simply saying 'make America great again.' We've got to get deeper than just these superficial fixes, as important as they are."

Williamson later clarified and said it was more of a job for the president's cabinet.

In her closing statement, she said, "Mr. President, if you're listening, I want you to hear me, please. You have harnessed fear for political purposes and only love can cast that out. So I, sir, I have a feeling you know what you're doing. I'm going to harness love for political purposes. I will meet you on that field. And, sir, love will win."

Such comments prompted an outpouring of mockery and internet memes, such as one Twitter user who wrote that Williamson is "the only candidate bold enough to propose a witchcraft based health care system."

But Williamson, a self-help author who grew up in Houston, is polling at or below 1% nationally, putting her at risk of being cast from the crowded field.

For the first debate, candidates needed to register at least 1% in polls or receive donations from more than 65,000 people. She hit both targets in late May. Through the end of March, she had raised $1.5 million, according to her last campaign finance report. The next quarterly reports are due July 15.

Anuzis, like other Republican donors, is determined not to let her lose traction. The former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party sent $1 to her campaign, and although he conceded that "nothing" about her appeals to him, he wants to keep her on stage with the other 2020 Democrats.

That, he said, "helps Trump and Republicans across the board."

Roe's tactics aren't new. Political operatives in both parties have sought ways to derail rival campaigns with dirty tricks.

Donald Segretti, a political operative for President Richard Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign, was known for sabotaging Democratic campaigns during the primary — for instance, crafting an anonymous letter claiming that Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson had fathered an illegitimate child with a 17-year-old.

Segretti later served 4.5 months in prison after pleading guilty to distributing that and other pieces of illegal campaign literature.

Ahead of the December 2017 election in Alabama, when freshman Sen. Doug Jones, a Democrat, scored an upset against scandal-ridden Republican Roy Moore, Democratic operatives posed as conservative Alabamans on a Facebook page they created and urged voters to support a write-in candidate to sap Moore's support.

But some Republicans who have pitched in with Williamson do view her as a serious contender rather than a sideshow. Dan Eberhart, a Houston businessman, considers himself a Trump supporter but praised Williamson for her outsider persona — drawing parallels between the two celebrity candidates.

"She's not a career Democratic politician," he said, adding that her ideas were more "realistic" than other candidates in the debate.

Eberhart donated $1 earlier this week, and hasn't ruled out donating more.

"I would like to see her make that next leap and be on that stage for future debates," he said.