Club for Growth President David McIntosh told reporters Monday night that Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is “doing a good job,” after his organization announced a $20 million fund supporting 20 members who initially opposed McCarthy’s speakership.
“Kevin’s not somebody that you throw in as a campaign issue. I think he’s doing a good job, actually,” McIntosh told reporters of an issues poll that measured the approval ratings of President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “I don’t think [excluding McCarthy from the poll] was conscious.”
Club for Growth’s super PAC, Club for Growth Action, announced the Patriot 20 initiative in a donor memo also released Monday. The super PAC will spend $20 million in support of the 20 House Republicans who opposed McCarthy during the marathon 15-vote speaker ballot. Six of the members did not support McCarthy at any time during the process, voting “present” on the final ballot.
“Some of those men and women are under challenges in their primary and the general, so I’m going to donors and saying, ‘let’s put money in there, send a signal we’ll be behind them in their re-election,'” McIntosh said.
The spending will be centered around five freshmen representatives, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Eli Crane of Arizona, and Keith Self of Texas. The pledge is intended to ward off “moderate donors and candidates seeking to settle scores” who may be encouraged to spend in those races, since “first-term incumbents are often perceived as more vulnerable,” according to the memo.
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: U.S. Rep.-elect Dan Bishop (R-NC) prepares to vote in the House Chamber during the fourth day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 06, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Club for Growth made the speaker’s race a key vote on its scorecard. Although the organization did not specifically score against McCarthy, it listed a number of concessions it argued the next speaker should make to open up the legislative process. In a key concession, the GOP leadership-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund agreed not to endorse or spend money in Republican safe-seat open primaries.
Nine of the holdouts participated in an early June floor shutdown in the aftermath of McCarthy’s deal with Biden to pass the Fiscal Responsibility Act and raise the debt ceiling. Those members argued that the legislation violated a deal made between chamber leadership and the holdouts during the speaker’s race. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Ken Buck Explains How Speaker McCarthy Can Win His Support Back)
McIntosh has repeatedly praised the holdouts, who he argues have made McCarthy a better speaker.
“I think in the end, Kevin’s going to look at this and say, ‘you guys helped me be a good speaker.’ I know he didn’t like it at the time, but he was able to unite the whole caucus and have conservatives like me tell him he’s doing a great job,” McIntosh said in February.