Many donors have criticized the Republican party for focusing on social issues. Will Wall Street spurn GOP in 2014?

Wall Street donors and bundlers plunged hundreds of millions of dollars into the GOP’s effort to take back the White House and Senate this year — and now some are threatening to cut off the spigot ahead of 2014 in the face of disappointing results.

New York donors have a list of complaints: Republicans focused too much on social issues, backed too many weak candidates, stalled Hurricane Sandy aid and even let taxes go up for the very rich — in other words, the very people giving the money and their friends.


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That’s forced Senate Republicans — led by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) — to scramble to assuage their top givers so that a moment of frustration doesn’t lead to long-term defection.

“There’s a lot of disappointment on people that were supporting Romney because of how much he lost New York by, it was like 81 to 19, a tremendous loss,” said John Catsimatidis, a billionaire Republican who recently announced he was running for New York City mayor. “If President [Barack] Obama shows that Washington is more the middle of the road, gets away from the blame game, it may be harder to raise Republican money in New York.”

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Portman’s been busy. He attended 12 meetings in just two days on a swing through New York in January. At one megadonor lunch, he presented a strategic plan for 2014.

Portman said donors are eager to learn about the continually shifting landscape — including recent Democratic retirements in West Virginia and Iowa — as well as how the party intends to win seven Democratic seats in states that Romney won last year. And they want to hear directly from top senators about the lessons learned from the disappointing 2012 cycle — when Wall Street donors cringed alongside other Republicans as not one, but two GOP Senate candidates made controversial comments about rape.

“We’ve been able to show them an aggressive plan that we’re going to be working on,” Portman, vice chairman of finance for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told POLITICO. “Their interest was in ensuring we have a winning team on the field. They are interested in making sure we have a pro-growth agenda and we’re able to get this economy back on track and get the debt and deficit under control; those are good key issues.”

“They want us to show you how you’re going to succeed this time, where we didn’t last time,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), No. 3 in Senate GOP leadership, told POLITICO. “And there’s a lot of frustration from people who contributed to political campaigns, and then we lost a lot of races that they at least thought we should have won.”

And getting donors back on board could be harder than some expect.

Republican fundraisers have struggled to find willing donors post-election for lawmakers looking to make the rounds early in the cycle. One fundraiser said multiple companies and executives said not to come up to New York until after Sandy relief was passed.

“Everyone in the financial industry, much like the business world, look at politics as an investment, and they just don’t feel like they got much of a return,” said one financial services Republican lobbyist. “I think it is going to be tough this time.”

Donors, too, have been perplexed at the focus of some Senate GOP candidates on social issues.

“There is a vein throughout the Republican Party of people who are very socially liberal. You don’t live in New York City, which exalts in its diversity, in all these things that happen here if you have a problem,” said one veteran Republican New York fundraiser of the frustration with the party’s stance on social issues. “Everybody who lives here — everyone has lots of gay friends, friends of color, Muslims, that’s the world you live in. It’s not exotic. It’s part of the fabric of life.”

Portman said the meetings have helped assuage those concerns, noting the “reaction has been very positive; I’m not concerned about where these donors are in terms of their support of what we’re trying to do.”

“On the social issues, they are probably a little more on the moderate side than most Republicans,” Portman added. “But their core issues are jobs and the economy, one, and two, dealing with the debt and deficit.”

The donors certainly have the attention of top Republican heavy hitters; both Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), the NRSC chairman, and Thune attended donor meetings in December, and Portman said he attempted to attend as well, but had flight problems because of the weather and eventually had to drive an additional two hours to New York, only to make the meeting just as it was ending.

“Talk about commitment,” Portman said with a chuckle.

Others have shown their commitment as well.

Thune, who attended donor meetings in December, said the New York community is filled with business people who want to see a plan to ensure they’re getting a return on their investments.

The South Dakota Republican said it all boils down to this: “I think it’s basically laying out how you get from Point A to Point B, and it starts of course with candidate recruitment — getting candidates who are electable. And that’s one of the things they were most concerned about — they want candidates in the general election that can win those elections.”

Two issues senators have heard about consistently are the holdup over Sandy aid and frustration over some GOP candidates’ focus on social issues.

“These are people who are pretty much economic conservatives,” Thune said. “They are interested in economic issues, fiscal issues, and you know, you talk to another group of our coalition out there, you get a different response with regard to that. I don’t think it was unexpected that you would hear from people in New York that they would want more of the focus to be on those issues.”

Still, the underlying issue is how to deal with the raging GOP primaries that have contributed to the Republican shortfalls in the past two election cycles where they failed to win back the Senate majority. Top Republicans in Washington want to play a bigger role in recruiting candidates early and trying to unite the base behind a consensus nominee.

“I do think that as we look to recruit candidates for races and for seats, you want to identify candidates that have not only qualities that would serve them well in a primary, but also candidates who can win a general election,” Thune said.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who is now the minority whip, knows firsthand the danger of engaging in Senate primaries. In 2010, tea party candidates defeated several of Cornyn’s choices in Republican primaries in states like Colorado, Delaware and Florida.

So after suffering sharp blowback in 2010, Cornyn decided not to engage at all in 2012 primaries where there wasn’t a GOP incumbent. For the most part, the NRSC got the candidates it wanted in the general election in states like Montana, North Dakota and Arizona — but in cases like Indiana and Missouri, weak candidates won their primaries and eventually lost winnable races.

Cornyn says in 2014, Republicans should follow the Arizona model: The party establishment and movement conservatives united behind Jeff Flake’s primary challenge against Wil Cardon, a self-funding conservative businessman.

“I thought Arizona was probably a good example of trying to find a consensus candidate who can also win the general election; that’s easier said than done; that I think should be an aspirational goal,” Cornyn told POLITICO.

“I think my sense is that after a preview of 2010 and a tougher 2012 is that conservatives want to win,” Cornyn said. “And they recognize that it’s not just about conservative bona fides, it’s also about the competency of the candidate. I think there’s a re-evaluation of all that.”

Cornyn added: “There should be plenty of good conservatives who can also run a good campaign and who won’t stick their foot in the mouth.”

Other top Republicans agree.

“We ought to pick the very best people,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is active with the NRSC’s fundraising. “We ought to help the very best people get elected.”

Still, internal party wars may be waiting in the wings. For instance, one of the candidates who is already under assault from the right is a congresswoman from West Virginia — Rep. Shelley Moore Capito — whom some influential conservative groups consider too moderate. Still, top Republicans think she’s an attractive candidate who can win.

“She’s a very attractive candidate for us,” Cornyn said. “I can tell you from four years of looking at West Virginia and looking at running races there, that there’s not a lot of — there’s not a deep bench.”

Still, some Republicans doubt the NRSC can do much at the end of the day.

“At the end of the day, the voters will pick their candidates — and that’s what’s going to happen,” said Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.).