Republicans could barely contain their glee when the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision cleared the way for unlimited spending in political campaigns.

But now — headed into a crowded presidential primary that promises to be longer, nastier and more expensive as a result of the ruling — some are having buyers’ remorse.


Concerns are mounting among top donors and party elites that an influx of huge checks into the GOP primary will hurt the party’s chances of retaking the White House. Long-shot candidates propped up by super PACs and other big-money groups will be able to linger for months throwing damaging barbs at establishment favorites who offer a better chance of victory, the thinking goes.

Already, big-money groups have raised about $86 million to support a handful of second- and third-tier candidates — Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and John Kasich of Ohio, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former CEO Carly Fiorina and former Govs. Rick Perry of Texas and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. In some cases, the lion’s share came from a handful of ultra-wealthy partisans, including a pair of Dallas billionaires who combined to give $11 million to a pro-Perry super PAC and a handful of donors who accounted for the majority of the $37 million reportedly raised by a pro-Cruz super PAC.

By comparison, the actual presidential campaign committees established by Cruz, Fiorina, Huckabee and Perry — which, unlike super PACs, must limit individual donations to $2,700 during the primary — raised about $19 million combined, according to their campaigns.

Jordan Russell, a spokesman for a trio of pro-Perry super PACs that collectively raised nearly $17 million, said that cash is important to help Perry level the playing field against better-funded establishment-backed rivals like Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. “No one is going to be able to raise as much as Jeb Bush, but what we have is going to help Gov. Perry compete. Competition is a good thing. The more people in the process, the better.”

Allies of Bush and fellow Floridian, Sen. Marco Rubio, also have raised far more cash into unlimited-money vehicles.

But it’s the potential spoiler candidates for whom super PACs represent a newly available path to staying power and relevance, if not the first tier. Big-money outside groups supporting Fiorina, Kasich, Perry and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal this month have spent about $1.4 million and counting on ads in Iowa and New Hampshire, hoping to boost their candidates’ standing in critical early states, and, as a result, in the national polls that will determine who gets on the stage in early debates.

And Cruz is expected to lean heavily on outside money in implementing a long-haul strategy focused on later-voting states and possibly a contested convention.

The degree to which various candidates in the massive 15-candidate GOP field rely on super PAC crutches will start becoming apparent by midnight Wednesday — the deadline for most of the candidates to file campaign-finance reports with the Federal Election Commission. But the more illuminating deadline will come at the end of July when super PAC disclosures detailing seven- and eight-figure checks from mega-donors are due to the FEC.

“A super PAC for a broadly successful candidate makes them doubly formidable. A super PAC for a marginal candidate keeps them alive. And that’s what’s different now,” said former President George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer.

As a point of reference, he cited the crowded GOP presidential primary in 2000, when he worked for Elizabeth Dole, one of the many candidates who dropped out before primary voting began due to insufficient fundraising. “That’s the way it used to be, and it helped sort out the race to the real contenders. The super PAC era is going to make it harder to sort out the race, and particularly for the Republicans, who have so many candidates to begin with, it just keeps the clutter going,” said Fleischer.

He helped lead a Republican National Committee forensic analysis of the GOP’s shortcomings in the 2012 election. It flagged the potential downsides of big-money spending in primaries, asserting “Super PAC money is a wild card that weakens our eventual nominee, regardless of who he or she is, due to the onslaught of negative ads against that candidate.”

In response to the report’s recommendations, the party tried to truncate its nominating process, condensing the calendar of primaries and caucuses, reducing the number of debates and moving the convention to July — more than a month earlier than in 2012.

But party leaders’ hands are tied when it comes to limiting the ability of mega-donors to subsidize fringe campaigns, including by attacking more viable rivals. And conditions appear ripe for super PACs to make the 2012 GOP primary — the first of the Citizens United era — look like child’s play by comparison.

In that race, Las Vegas casino billionaire and Wyoming mutual fund pioneer Foster Friess almost single-handedly subsidized the long-shot GOP primary campaigns of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, respectively, despite otherwise lackluster campaign organizations and fundraising. The super PAC supporting Gingrich in particular, which was backed by more than $20 million from Adelson’s family, spent heavily on ads attacking the party favorite — and eventual nominee — Mitt Romney as a heartless corporate raider by highlighting his time at the helm of the private equity firm Bain Capital. Republicans bemoaned the attacks, which played into the hands of Democrats. They eagerly picked up the theme when a damaged Romney, his super PAC and campaign coffers depleted from fending off the attacks, limped into the general election against President Barack Obama.

“That did Gov. Romney no favors,” said John Jordan, a California winery owner who in 2014 donated $2.4 million to Republican candidates and groups. “Moreover, the resources that went into supporting a lot of these candidates with lower probability of winning could have been very well spent in the summer providing air cover for Romney, when he was being defined by the Democrats for Bain Capital, etc.,” said Jordan, who last month hosted a super PAC fundraiser for his pick for the 2016 presidential nomination — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Jordan said Republican mega-donors need to be mindful not to repeat 2012 — especially since the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, appears less likely to face major super PAC fire during her primary.

“When it becomes clear who the nominee is going to be — even if that person is not perfect or is not our guy or girl — maybe we need to think about whether it’s really worth the damage to the nominee to boost an outside candidate’s chances by 5 percent,” Jordan said. “Each donor has to look at it that way.”

Fred Malek, a major GOP fundraiser who is neutral in the presidential primary, acknowledged that super PACs “are going to enable candidates to extend their candidacies.” But he predicted that the primary wouldn’t be as damaging as it was in 2012, partly because there is no clear consensus front-runner like Romney.

“Everyone else was attacking him,” Malek said. “Attacks this time will likely be reduced.”

In fact, the Wyoming investor Friess, who has pledged to revive his heavy spending to boost Santorum as the former Pennsylvania senator again seeks the GOP nomination, this month wrote a letter to the party’s presidential prospects and the RNC calling for candidates to refrain from negative attacks.

Of course, super PACs are legally required to be independent from the candidates. And they often take it upon themselves to air the types of negative attacks from which the campaigns prefer to keep their distance.

Robust primary elections are the fullest expression of the First Amendment argument that carried the day in the Citizens United ruling, said David Bossie, president of Citizens United, the conservative advocacy group that brought the case.

“I want every candidate in this race to have an opportunity to sell their ideas, or lack thereof, to Republican primary voters, whether it’s Chris Christie and John Kasich, or whether it’s Ted Cruz and Ben Carson and Donald Trump,” he said. “At the end of the day, the American people vote for candidates based upon who has better ideas, not more money.”

Regardless of the practical effect, it’s become nearly impossible to run a viable presidential campaign without a super PAC, said Nick Ryan, an Iowa operative who in 2012 ran the Friess-funded super PAC, which helped lift Santorum to an upset win in the Iowa caucus.

This time around, Ryan is running a super PAC for another long shot — former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — and he may have found another mega-donor. Arkansas poultry magnate Ronnie Cameron told POLITICO he donated to the pro-Huckabee super PAC, which is expected to report $6 million in contributions compared with the $2 million raised by the Huckabee campaign.

But Ryan argued big super PAC checks no longer provide any “real strategic advantage.” Rather, they ensure your candidate isn’t at a disadvantage. “Since everyone has a super PAC, that shifts the focus back to the quality of the candidate and the campaign they have to run,” he said.