November 10, 2021

GOP Megadonor Announces Plans to Fundraise for Joe Manchin

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

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Sen. Joe Manchin’s efforts to winnow down key parts of Joe Biden’s agenda appear to have earned him clout with a like-minded constituency: Republican billionaires.

In a Wednesday morning interview with CNBC, Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone said that he plans to raise money for the West Virginia Democrat’s 2024 reelection campaign.

“I’m going to have one of the biggest fundraisers I’ve ever had for him,” Langone told CNBC. “He’s special. He’s precious. He’s a great American.”

Langone is one of the GOP’s most prominent rainmakers, famous for pouring money into Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, he has also contributed to some Democrats in the past, including former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.).

Manchin’s campaign and Senate office did not respond to requests for comment.

Manchin has also received public praise from Nelson Peltz, a billionaire investor, who previously hosted fundraisers for Donald Trump in his Florida home. In an October interview, Peltz told CNBC that he speaks with Manchin every week and offers him words of encouragement.

Langone’s announcement comes as Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D) work to reduce the scale and scope of Biden’s $1.8 trillion social spending plan. Manchin has specifically opposed programs designed to shift American businesses from fossil fuels to clean energy, while owning millions of dollars in coal industry stock. He has also criticized a Democratic plan to tax billionaires as divisive and has opposed raising the corporate tax above 25 percent.

Sinema has herself received an influx of cash from GOP megadonors. Fundraising reports filed in October showed that big-name Republican donors, including billionaire businessmen and private equity executives, had contributed thousands of dollars to her campaign.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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