Senate Republicans Have Rich People Problems

David McCormick, the GOP candidate challenging Pennsylvania’s Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, was blunt when he spoke with students at Dartmouth University in New Hampshire last month.

“I am spending half my time with donors,” McCormick told students at the Tuck School of Business, according to audio obtained by the progressive news site Heartland Signal , adding: “I’m everywhere across the country, mostly with really wealthy people.”

McCormick himself, of course, is also one of those very wealthy people. Senate financial disclosures indicate McCormick, a former Bush administration official and CEO at Bridgewater Associates, and his wife Dina Powell, a Trump administration official who previously was a partner at Goldman Sachs, have a combined net worth of between $95 million and $196 million.

The wealth makes McCormick emblematic of the type of candidate Republicans are relying on to win back control of the Senate in 2024. The recruitment of the wealthy, an intentional strategy by the GOP, aims to help close the persistent gap in fundraising between Democratic and Republican Senate candidates that has opened up since the 2018 midterm elections. Republicans are counting on them to either fund races with their own pocketbooks, or turn to extensive fundraising networks.

Beyond McCormick, there’s aerial firefighting company owner Tim Sheehy in Montana; car dealer and blockchain executive Bernie Moreno in Ohio; banker Eric Hovde in Wisconsin; and even West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, the Mountaineer State’s richest man.

There are plenty of signs it’s working ― McCormick raised $5.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, compared to just $3.6 million for Casey. A super PAC backing his candidacy raised a whopping $18 million,