The political network founded by conservative industrialists Charles and David Koch has raised more than $70 million for political races as it seeks to help Republicans overcome Donald J. Trump, according to a group official.
With a portion of that large sum to boot, the network, Americans for Prosperity Action, plans to throw its weight behind the GOP presidential nomination contest for the first time in its nearly 20-year history. The network spent nearly $500 million supporting Republican candidates and conservative policies during the 2020 election cycle alone.
Two groups closely affiliated with Charles Koch contributed $50 million of the more than $70 million that has been raised (David Koch died of cancer in 2019). Mr. Koch is a major shareholder in Koch Industries, which contributed $25 million to Americans for Prosperity Action, according to a preliminary draft of Federal Election Commission documents. Stand Together, a nonprofit he founded, gave another $25 million.
The Koch network’s goal in the 2024 presidential primary, which has been described only indirectly in written internal communications, is to prevent Mr. Trump from winning the Republican nomination. In February, a top political officer at the network, Emily Seidel, wrote a memo to donors and activists saying it was time to “have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter.”
Since then, Republican voters have rallied around the former president, with his support in the polls bolstering his status as the favorite following his two impeachments. Some of the top donors to Republican politics, including some in the Koch network, had pinned their hopes on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as Trump’s most promising challenger. But Mr. DeSantis has baffled many donors with his early campaign stumbles and a slide in his polls.
Seven months from the primary, Koch’s coalition of conservatives is still looking for who its influential and wealthy donors believe can unseat the former president, a reflection of a broader paralysis among anti-Trump Republican donors who have seen the Mr. Trump’s poll numbers have held despite the two accusations. A memo circulated on the Koch network this month argued that Mr. Trump’s renomination was not inevitable, arguing that the eligibility issue could still weaken him.
Some top Republican donors, who routinely write seven- or eight-figure checks to support candidates, are keeping their checkbooks closed as they wait to see if Mr. DeSantis may improve or if another candidate, such as Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, emerges during the summer debates. His paralysis has benefited Mr. Trump, who is grudgingly seen by many of the party’s top donors as the inevitable nominee.
Still, Koch network officials profess optimism that 2024 will not be a repeat of 2016, when Mr. Trump began winning statewide races with about a third of the party’s Republican base behind him in a fractured and crowded field.
The notion of Mr. Trump’s inevitability “is being pushed by the left-wing media, political operatives and the Trump campaign itself,” Michael Palmer, president of the Koch-affiliated voter data group i360, wrote in a note this month
Mr Palmer sought to dispel that narrative: “The country is in a very different place than it was eight years ago. Voters of all classes (including Republican primary voters) have a changing knowledge base about the former president, and the other candidates will almost certainly treat him differently in the primaries this time around.”
Still, except for a handful of rivals, most have either walked hard around Mr. Trump or defended him over his two criminal indictments.
Mr. Palmer argued that Mr. Trump was weaker than he looked. He noted how much time remained in the campaign, the fact that early polls often do not predict the winner, that many voters express concern about Mr. Trump’s general election viability, and that a portion of the former president’s voters have indicated its opening. to another “more eligible” candidate.
Mr. Palmer wrote that “support for DeSantis at this point likely represents a generic Republican, as his policy positions are not well known outside of Florida.”
The group is expected to do a new round of digital advertising on the issue of eligibility in the presidential race, as well as sending out its first direct mail message in the coming days.
The group has also made a number of endorsements in low-ballot races, where it plans to spend significant sums. Americans for Prosperity has 300 full-time employees in the states and 800 part-time employees, officials said. It is about to make its first round of congressional endorsements.
It is not clear how long before the Iowa caucuses early next year the group will decide the best candidate to support Mr. trump
According to the preliminary draft of the FEC filings for Americans for Prosperity Action, its top donors include Art Pope, a North Carolina businessman who attended a political retreat hosted by former Vice President Mike Pence before ‘join the presidential race; Craig Duchossois, a Chicago businessman; Jim and Rob Walton, brothers and heirs to the Walmart fortune; and Ron Cameron, an Arkansas poultry magnate.
Mr. DeSantis, in particular, has taken several positions ideologically at odds with the Koch network, including his pledge to repeal the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform bill that was passed during Trump’s presidency with the strong support of the network. However, group officials may ultimately opt for pragmatism over strict agreement on key issues if it looks like a candidate might win.
While they wait for the Republican camp to win, the network’s top brass are attempting a difficult feat: changing who votes in the Republican primaries. The network has a vast army of lobbyists, backed by tens of millions of dollars, who fan out into competitive states each election cycle to support candidates.
In these early months of the Republican presidential primary, the network is deploying those same activists to engage voters who are open to supporting someone other than Mr. Trump. They are starting a conversation with these voters, gathering data about them and raising doubts about Mr. Trump’s chances of winning a general election. They intend to return to the doorsteps of these voters closer to the primaries to try to convince them to vote for the network’s preferred candidate.
“A key part of our strategy to elect better leaders is to empower more people’s voices in the primaries,” said Ms. Seidel in a statement. “We’re asking general election voters to show up in the primaries to support better candidates, and speaking to tens of thousands of those voters, they’re already excited to commit early to support a candidate who can win.”
This well-funded effort to defeat Mr. Trump represents something of a renewal. Before the 2016 Republican primary, Marc Short, a senior Koch official at the time, argued internally that the network should spend heavily to stop Mr. Trump and support a challenger with a more conservative political record, such as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas or Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
Senior officials and donors killed the idea, but some in the network regretted it. Mr. Short has come full circle. He joined the Trump-Pence campaign and served in the Trump administration as director of legislative affairs and then chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence. Mr. Short now advises Mr. Pence as he runs for president against his former boss.
