RNC chairman Reince Priebus has said he would 'stand with Ted Cruz any day.' | REUTERS Donors' frustration with GOP mounts

Republican donors were horrified in November after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigns for president and Congress with nothing to show for it. A year later they’re appalled by how little has changed, angered by the behavior of Republican lawmakers during a string of legislative battles this year capped by the shutdown, and searching for answers.

In conversation after conversation, donors express growing frustration with the party and the constellation of outside groups they’ve been bankrolling. After getting squeezed last year by an array of campaign committees, party committees and disparate super PACs, many of them are still sitting on their checkbooks — a worrisome sign for the party with the 2014 midterm elections fast approaching.


Some donors are looking to take matters into their own hands.

( WATCH: Who won the shutdown? Top 5 quotes)

New York City GOP mega-bundler Paul Singer has held a series of informal, and a few very formal, discussions in recent months with other extremely wealthy donors about how best to spend their cash in 2014, including debating the idea of forming a new entity to play a serious role in the midterm races. Its focus would be on improving the quality of Republican candidates in the hopes of avoiding more Todd Akin-like candidates who blow eminently winnable races.

“He wants to win,” one donor who attended a session said of Singer. The donor stressed that the hedge fund billionaire’s meetings, like other informal gatherings among the monied class this year, were taking place well prior to the government shutdown.

Still, some donors think the reluctance about giving among their ranks may have reached an inflection point over the way a number of Republicans in Washington acquitted themselves the past few weeks.

( Also on POLITICO: GOP blame game: Who lost the shutdown?)

Donors and business leaders, whose words used to carry great weight with candidates ever worried that the money spigot might be turned off, now face a new reality. It’s a Frankenstein syndrome of sorts, in which the candidates they’ve helped fund, directly or indirectly, don’t fear them, and don’t think they need them.

Many business leaders are exasperated by their diminished influence among congressional Republicans since the 2012 election, and by the rising clout of groups like the Senate Conservative Fund, which have run ads against incumbent Republican senators for not taking enough of a hard line on the shutdown.

Where there is agreement — as is the case with donors who believe the Republican National Committee should be shored up — there is also dissatisfaction with the slow pace of progress.

( PHOTOS: 2016: Who’s next?)

At issue is not just the shutdown, but legislative battles earlier this year, such as the stymied attempt at immigration reform. Several Republican donors said watching that effort run into headwinds among conservative House members, combined with the tortured standoff over the government shutdown and potential debt default, had left a sour taste in their mouths.

Some expressed frustration that the national party has not taken a strong stand. That sentiment extends to the RNC, whose chairman, Reince Priebus, wrote shortly before the shutdown that he would “stand with Ted Cruz any day” against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Fred Zeidman, a Texas-based bundler who supported Mitt Romney and George W. Bush, is among those who don’t want to give to party committees right now.

“Why do I want to fuel a fire that’s going to consume us?“ he asked.

Singer, meanwhile, is considering a do-it-yourself approach.

( Also on POLITICO: Assessing shutdown damage)

At a meeting convened by the executive of 30 to 40 donors over dinner in New York City late last month, major donors discussed how to prevent a repeat next year of the devastating 2012 cycle. One idea broached is to form a new entity — probably not a super PAC — that could be a driving force in midterm races, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

Harold Hamm, a onetime energy adviser to Romney, was among the meeting’s participants, who were strongly encouraged to keep the discussions confidential, according to two sources. People familiar with the meetings stressed that no decisions have been made, and that these were among a number of discussions various groups of donors have held over the past 10 months.

Despite his business background, Singer’s issue is not with the tea party per se — he has been a major donor to the Club for Growth, which has backed Cruz, a progenitor of the movement to defund Obamacare — but with the GOP at large losing race after race.

Singer is also still a major supporter of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, hosting events for it recently. But the committee has been struggling mightily since 2012, outraised by its Democratic counterpart and hit even harder amid the shutdown.

The fundraising woes for the GOP have been especially pronounced with New York-area donors, according to a number of Republican sources. At an event hosted by the NRSC a few weeks ago, donors vented about the inability of leadership to control Cruz and other vocal senators affiliated with the tea party.

An Oct. 30 National Republican Congressional Committee event in New York City, which is expected to feature attendees from the financial services sector, is still proceeding apace, according to a committee spokeswoman. But a senior Republican familiar with an event planned in New York on Nov. 4, also with Wall Street donors, said the response has been tepid.

“It’s difficult,” the source said before the shutdown and debt ceiling standoff was resolved. “These are people who make a living analyzing risk. They want to know when the government will open and when the debt limit will be responsibly raised. Though most senators are working to that end, it’s impossible to give a clear answer, so until the path is clear, it’s difficult.”

Strains between the donor class and the party are taking a toll on GOP-leaning money groups. And after their sweeping losses last cycle, the Karl Rove-founded Crossroads groups, which recently held a donor conference in Washington replete with presentations, are among those feeling the hardest pinch.

Multiple sources familiar with Crossroads’ fundraising say that a year after the groups spent $300 million only to see Republicans lose the White House and several winnable Senate races, fundraising has taken a hit. According to the most recent filing American Crossroads, the 527 version of the group, made with the Federal Election Commission, it had just over $2 million to spend. That super PAC files with the Internal Revenue Service and is not required to disclose donors.

Still, Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio insisted the recent event went well.

“Many of the supporters and donors there expressed confidence in what we were doing and how we’re adapting, the much-improved candidate field for the cycle, and continue to believe Crossroads is the best investment after maxing out to candidates and party committees,” he said.

In November, Priebus faced an angry group of donors who demanded changes to the party’s primary calendar and, according to sources present at the meeting in New York, asked him to try to shrink the influence of Iowa on the presidential nominating process.

Instead, the grass roots — with its ability to raise money in low-dollar amounts online and spread a message through self-selected conservative-leaning media — have only demonstrated to major donors the limits of the national party’s influence.

Al Hoffman, a mega-donor and former U.S. ambassador to Portugal, said conservative activists have delivered an unmistakable message to donors and business leaders who warned about a potential default on the debt: “We don’t care.”

“So many in the House are hard-right reactionary tea party,” he told POLITICO during the shutdown. “And those Republicans, it appears, are ready to self-immolate, and are willing to risk the destruction of the party by risking the destruction of the economy, by risking a default.”

He added, “I am desperate to get the Republicans moving again … in my view we’re becoming a party of irrelevancy.”

Hoffman said he was set to meet with Priebus privately this past Wednesday. “What he really needs to do is tell me in such an impassioned way what his ideas are, how we can bring these Republicans together,” Hoffman said before the get-together.

In an email, Priebus insisted he is seeing and hearing positive things from donors, and did not witness a falloff in donations during the shutdown.

“I spend three to six hours a day on the phone with donors,” Priebus said. “Generally the things that we focus on at the RNC have to do with our ground game, our digital upgrades and our primary and debate calendar issues. Our main focus targets issues that are universally accepted by all opinion leaders and supporters in our Party. Our donor numbers have been consistent and strong.”

Some longtime Republican fundraisers cautioned against over-reading the current mood, suggesting that at this point in either a midterm or a presidential cycle, most donors are not fully engaged. Woody Johnson, the New York Jets football team owner who is a major fundraiser for the RNC and held a cattle call-style fundraiser for the party at his home a few weeks ago, echoed that the GOP is moving in the right direction.

“Under Reince’s leadership the RNC and party have experienced enormous growth and renewal,” Johnson said in an emailed statement. “The donor community understands the need to build our infrastructure and technology and are enthusiastic about the progress Reince is making on all of these fronts.”