Big GOP donors aren’t there for Loren Culp — yet

But GOP long-shot has raked in nearly $850K since the primary

While incumbent Gov. Jay Inslee has raked in $6.7 million in campaign cash, including $1.4 million from a handful of immensely wealthy donors via the Democratic Party, most wealthy Republican donors and the state party have not yet opened their wallets for GOP long-shot challenger Loren Culp.

That doesn’t mean Culp isn’t raising money. From the Aug. 4 primary through Friday, Culp hauled in nearly $850,000, while Inslee took in $1.1 million, according to the campaigns’ filings with the Public Disclosure Commission.* Culp’s still in a deep hole, with just over $2 million raised. But if you drop out the $150,000 Inslee got in one shot from the state Democratic Party in August, they’re running dead even since the primary. Culp’s only party money so far is $5,000 from the Skagit County GOP.

What’s missing so far is Republican megadonors pouring cash through the party, a loophole the Democrats are actively exploiting, as the Observer reported earlier this week.

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As of Friday, the Washington State Republican Party’s hard-money fund — which can raise unlimited amounts from individual donors and give a statewide candidate millions of dollars — had raised $677,971, compared to $2 million for the Democrats, according to filings with the Public Disclosure Commission. Culp hasn’t see a dime of the GOP money, and isn’t likely to. Almost all of it was transferred from other hard-money funds controlled by Republican leaders in the Legislature, which is less raising money than moving it from one pocket to another. The party will most likely spend it on close races in the House and Senate.

Individual donors can only give $2,000 per election directly to statewide candidates — that’s $2,000 for the primary and $2,000 for the general for a total of $4,000. But the parties can raise unlimited amounts from donors, and turn around and give statewide candidates $1 per registered voter, or about $4.6 million.

Culp is at a particular disadvantage because he didn’t raise much before the primary, while Inslee, as the incumbent, pulled in hundreds of $4,000 “double-maxes.” Culp, meanwhile, has just 10 donors who have given $4,000. Only 41 of his donations since the primary were for the full $2,000. 

The question is, will the big Republican money step up for the police chief of tiny Republic, a remote outpost in Eastern Washington’s Ferry County? 

Neither Republican Party Chairman Caleb Heimlich nor Culp’s campaign returned calls from The Washington Observer. 

Big GOP donors spent freely eight years ago when then-Attorney General Rob McKenna was their candidate. The party took in $3.5 million and gave more than $2.5 million to McKenna’s campaign. Many of the same donors were there, although not so generously, for the party’s nominee in 2016, former Port of Seattle Commissioner Bill Bryant. His campaign got $1 million of the roughly $3 million the GOP raised that year. 

But Culp is a much longer shot than even Bryant, who at least had been on the ballot in King County before, and had the support of many Republican leaders and the business establishment. For more on Culp, check out these profiles by Jim Brunner in The Seattle Times and Melissa Santos at Crosscut. 

Culp’s claim to fame before the primary was his pledge not to enforce the gun restrictions approved by the nearly 60 percent of voters who backed Initiative 1639 in 2018. The rest of Culp’s platform reads like a play for Donald Trump’s base. Trump got 38 percent of the vote in Washington in 2016.

While Culp’s live-free-or-die messaging resonated in some of the state’s most conservative areas, he got less than 20 percent of the primary vote in King, Pierce, Snohomish, Clark, Spokane, Thurston, Whatcom and Kitsap counties, which comprise the overwhelming majority of the state’s population. Of those counties, Inslee carried all but Clark and Spokane in 2016.

Shorter version: Culp figures to get killed in November. So it’s no surprise that big GOP donors aren’t reaching for their checkbooks just yet. 

But there’s still time. In 2012 and 2016, most of the large donations that flowed through the party to McKenna and Bryant came late in the election cycle. If Culp shows signs of life in the coming weeks — or Inslee stumbles somehow — the money might start to flow. Culp’s ability to energize his base and bring in cash himself could stir the big players to reach for their wallets. It only takes a few really rich people to make a difference: In 2016, just eight donors poured $1.4 million in hard money into the party. 

But it’s more likely that money flows to candidates for the state House and Senate. Republicans, already in the minority in both chambers, hope to stem further losses. A bigger majority could make Democrats more willing to push through progressive priorities including a capital gains tax and some form of carbon pricing scheme aimed at combating climate change. Watch your inbox next week for more on that.

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Inslee invites donors to Zoom with Hillary Clinton

In other political money news, the Inslee campaign sent out an invitation Friday for a Zoom fundraiser with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton has long been a divisive figure among Democrats, many of whom blame her 2016 campaign for President Donald Trump.** But apparently she’s still a fundraising draw. The fundraiser is scheduled for this coming Thursday.

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*Conflict of Interest Disclaimer 1: In 2012, when I was a strategic communications consultant, I wrote two checks to Inslee’s first campaign for governor, one for $125 and one for $208. I still don’t know what that eight bucks was about.

**Conflict of Interest Disclaimer 2: In 2016, at the Democratic precinct caucuses, I was elected, largely through my own inattention, a Hillary Clinton delegate from my precinct in West Seattle. This earned me the right to be bored out of my skull for several hours at the 34th Legislative District Caucuses a few weeks later.

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