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Insurgent conservative organizations raised more money last year than the leading Republican establishment outside groups, whose bulging bank accounts and ties to major donors have been their most potent advantage in the struggle over the G.O.P.'s future, according to interviews with officials and new campaign filings.
The shift in fortunes could have an enormous impact in 2014, as warring Republican factions prepare to square off in a series of Senate and House primaries around the country and Republican leaders seek to rein in activists who they believe have fractured and endangered the party with policies that alienate independent-leaning voters.
Emboldened by activists’ fury over compromises Republican leaders have struck with Democrats on federal spending, the conservative groups are preparing to muster political spending â€" in formidable amounts â€" to augment their grass-roots muscle in a challenge to Republicans aligned with party regulars.
The boom in conservative fund-raising is already playing out in the broader struggle for control of the Senate. Americans for Prosperity, the free-market advocacy group founded by the libertarian billionaire David Koch, has become by far the biggest single spender on early-campaign issue advertisements against Democratic incumbents: Since October, it has spent more than $23 million, chiefly on attacks on Democrats for supporting President Obama’s health care law.
That spree underscores the shifting balance in power within the party. During the 2012 campaign, Republican leaders counted on Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, the political nonprofit set up by the G.O.P. strategist Karl Rove, to soften Democratic candidates with issue ads during the early campaign season. Now that job is falling largely to Americans for Prosperity, which has often been critical of Republican leaders’ strategy on issues like the debt ceiling, and which has worked aggressively to reshape the party.
“The model that we have been building for the past eight years â€" a state-based organization with a supportive home office but a permanent infrastructure on the ground, with real troops, and with real support behind it â€" is one that our supporters believe in,†said Levi Russell, a spokesman for Americans for Prosperity.
Four Republican-leaning groups with close ties to the party’s leadership in Congress â€" Crossroads and its “super PAC†affiliate, the Congressional Leadership Fund, and Young Guns Action â€" raised a combined $7.7 million in 2013. By contrast, four conservative organizations that have battled Republican candidates deemed too moderate or too yielding on spending issues â€" FreedomWorks, the Club for Growth Action Fund, the Senate Conservatives Fund, and the Tea Party Patriots â€" raised a total of $20 million in 2013, according to Federal Election Commission reports filed on Friday.
“This is by far the biggest nonelection year we’ve ever had,†said Matt Hoskins, the executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund. “It shows how committed people are to electing true conservatives and to advancing conservative principles.â€
The Senate Conservatives Fund has feuded bitterly with party organizations, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and has financed challenges to incumbent senators who it does not believe adhere sufficiently to conservative orthodoxy.
In Kentucky, the fund is backing Matt Bevin, a businessman, in his bid to unseat Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s Republican leader.
“If Mitch McConnell wins, the party will continue to drift away from its conservative principles and become increasingly hostile to the grass-roots,†the Senate Conservatives Fund states on its website. “But if Matt Bevin wins, the establishment’s stranglehold over the party will be broken and power will be restored to the people who elect these politicians.â€
Because some of the biggest groups are not required to report their fund-raising to the Federal Election Commission and declined to volunteer the information, the figures do not include some major spenders on both sides, including Americans for Prosperity, and the American Action Network, which focused on House races and is affiliated with the Congressional Leadership Fund.
And the party-oriented organizations, which were organized and remain oriented toward helping Republicans win general elections, typically raise most of their revenue later in the election cycle.
“Our pledges are on track with previous cycles and we are increasingly enthusiastic about prospects for winning a majority in the Senate and holding the majority in the House,†said Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for Crossroads.
Moreover, major trade associations with ties to the Republican establishment have signaled they will spend heavily in this year’s election cycle, in part to help elevate candidates who can perform strongly in matchups against Democrats. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, traditionally one of the biggest players in campaigns, is forecasting that it will spend about $50 million on a mix of general election and primary races.
Yet there are signs that some of the establishment-oriented groups are being particularly careful with their cash. American Crossroads, the American Action Network and the YG Network announced a joint $1.2 million advertising campaign in the special election for a congressional seat in Florida, suggesting that the groups were taking care to pool their spending to achieve greater impact.
Some of the decline in fund-raising by major Republican groups is also being driven by the fragmentation of the party’s outside spending infrastructure. Mr. Rove’s battles with rebellious conservatives have drawn enough controversy that some candidates do not want to be openly associated with Crossroads. Instead, they are being backed by smaller groups, often founded by the candidates’ donors and former aides, that focus on a single race.
Such groups, in states like Texas, Louisiana, Alaska and North Carolina, have raised several million dollars between them, easing some of the gap with conservative groups.
“We still see ourselves as the serious underdogs,†Mr. Hoskins said.
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