3/9/20, 12/24/20, “How [Trump merged with the RNC] Trump Campaign Took Over the G.O.P.,” NY Times, Danny Hakim, Glenn Thrush, Washington
“Working under the aegis of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, with the cooperation of…the Republican National Committee, the operatives have consolidated power–and made money–in a way not possible in an earlier, more transparent analog era….
A fierce pressure campaign to centralize fund-raising on the new platform, a for-profit company that Mr. Trump branded WinRed, brought dissent from candidates initially reluctant to sign on, as well as competitors who believed they were being pushed aside without a fair hearing….
“It is completely, thoroughly ironic that Trump, who ran [in 2016] against anything to do with the R.N.C. and the establishment, is the guy who is breathing new life into the party,” said WinRed’s chairman, Henry Barbour. Perhaps no one better represents the new outside-in reality than Mr. Barbour-nephew of the former Republican Party chairman Haley Barbour-who once said it would be “very hard” to vote for Mr. Trump.
The younger Mr. Barbour is also chairman of the other central pillar of the Republican machine, Data Trust…a private company controlled by a board of Republican grandees,… a
storehouse of personal, commercial and demographic voter data collected
from state parties and voter files or bought from data brokers (or from
WinRed, itself a vital source of donor information)….
[7/15/2020, Jared is campaign manager. Parscale merely carries out Jared’s orders. “Peter Alexander@PeterAlexander, NBC News, “Jared Kushner was the campaign manager yesterday, is the campaign manager today and will be the campaign manager tomorrow.”]
(continuing): “Mr. Parscale…and his associates have said that [for-profit] private companies give them greater operational flexibility, given the constraints of campaign-finance laws. (ActBlue, by contrast, is a nonprofit. Both entities, though, are required to disclose individual donors.)…
The Trump family looms over the whole operation, starting with Mr. Kushner. While his White House portfolio has variously encompassed everything from immigration to the Middle East, his most consistent assignment has been informal campaign chairman,
The R.N.C. moved to rebuild around Data Trust, which it had recently helped establish. The idea was compelling: If state and national party committees and campaigns fed information into one place…outside the party, fund-raising limits would not apply. Contractors were fired, and much of the R.N.C.’s data staff was moved into Data Trust, which effectively became an off-campus arm of the party….
Karl Rove, campaign manager and confidant to President George W. Bush, was an early backer of Data Trust and has been informally advising [Jared’s subordinate] Mr. Parscale. He wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed that technology had played a critical role in battleground states, adding, “Data Trust was a big reason why Donald Trump won the 2016 election.”
Building a Cash Machine…
Republicans had fund-raising tools, but by coalescing around a single vendor...candidates could raise money jointly and more easily share data on contributors....To Mr. Kushner…only one vendor was acceptable, according to several people with knowledge of the deliberations: a company called Revv which had already been processing payments for the [2020 Trump] campaign.
By the summer of 2019, WinRed was created atop Revv’s platform….The new company was a joint venture between Revv and Data Trust, with 60 percent of profits going to Revv. (WinRed charges campaigns 3.8 percent, plus 30 cents per credit card transaction.)…
WinRed became ascendant, and this time the Trump team and Senate Republicans joined in a pressure campaign to convert holdouts. Mr. McConnell told colleagues at a lunch in mid-2019 that his personal goal was to “shut down all the competitors,” according to one senator who was surprised at the majority leader’s directness. The party even sent a cease-and-desist letter to one of the losing contenders, Anedot, instructing it to remove G.O.P. logos from solicitations.
With or without a stake in WinRed, key aides have positioned themselves at the center of a formidable political machine. Ms. Walsh-Shields’s consulting firm receives a $25,000-a-month R.N.C. retainer and 1 to 5 percent of money it raises for the party’s 2020 convention. Mr. Shields’s firm, Convergence Media, represents clients ranging from the National Republican Congressional Committee to Representative Devin Nunes of California….
Most Republican officeholders have succumbed to the WinRed pressure campaign. One late convert was [Establishment] Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who learned the power of being linked to Mr. Trump’s money machine when WinRed unexpectedly sent out a joint fund-raising appeal that brought in a “six-figure sum in a single day, which is huge in a down-ballot race,” said Tim Cameron, a Tillis adviser and former digital director at the Republican senatorial committee.
Without Mr. Trump’s victory, “there’d be nothing at the scale of WinRed,” he said. “All of a sudden, it’s one election, and we have the upper hand.""
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Added: Trump donors 6/7/2019 and 9/17/21 (generic link) had not yet realized that Trump merged with RNC. These donors despise the RNC, would never give them a penny, and are fearful RNC is getting a cut from Trump donations. Comments from 6/7/2019 on Free Republic and 9/17/21 (screen shot below) from The Conservative Treehouse:
Posted 6/7/2019 on Free Republic
“Question: To Donate or Not to Donate to RNC?
Posted on 6/7/2019, 1:47:43 AM by Be Careful
“In years past, I have refused to contribute one penny to the RNC. I did contribute heavily to the Trump Campaign. Lately, I have been getting texts from “Trump” or “Melania” asking me to donate to Trump Re-Election…(‘text yes to reply’.)…and, I text ‘yes’….only to see a charge to my credit card that posts to the RNC….Did the Trump Campaign give the RNC my info?…I have seriously mixed feelings about this….I still do not trust the RNC.....Question: does donating to the RNC help Trump’s fundraising prowess, thereby helping him continue to claim the Republican mantle?….Or, does contributing to the RNC only enable the McConnell-Romney-McCain wing? Looking forward to everyone’s thoughts.”
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Above 9/17/21 screen shot from Conservative Treehouse. Below is text from two comments on screen shot. This is generic link to site, I’ll post direct link to 9/17/21 screen shot when Iocate it.
"Dan Defense:"
“Christie and Rove are but two of the many reasons I will never donate, support, or even acknowledge the RNC, but instead donate directly to individual candidates.”….
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"Barb:"
“Does the RNC take a cut of those private donations? I will not donate via the WinRed ever.”…
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Added: 4/1/2021, ”The $2.2 billion that WinRed reported in contributions for candidates and political committees to the Federal Election Commission for 2019 and 2020 would have generated at least $88 million in revenue at that formula, likely resulting in about $29 million in profits.”... "GOP Firm Tied To Trump-Endorsed WinRed Fundraiser Tool At Center Of Minnesota Dispute," Huffpost.com, S.V. Date, "A Minnesota member has raised a stink within the RNC over half of the state party’s online fundraising total flowing to a D.C.-based consultant as commissions."
From blog editor: Re: 9/17/21 screen shot from The Conservative Treehouse, I’ll post direct link to screen shot when I locate it.
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