- Before becoming speaker, Mike Johnson had never raised more than $1.3 million in any campaign.
- That fundraising inexperience led many experts to question his fitness to lead the House GOP caucus.
Mike Johnson has only been Speaker of the House for a little over one month. But even with such a short time in office and relatively little congressional experience, he just helped break a Republican fundraising record previously set under the leadership of then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
On Tuesday, the National Republican Congressional Committee announced it brought in $9 million in donations in November, Johnson's first full month as speaker. The amount broke the group's "previous off-year November record" in 2021 under McCarthy's helm by $1.8 million.
Not all of that nearly $2 million, however, came from Republican voters.
The group noted that "rank and file members" of the House played a large part in November's dramatic haul, transferring close to $1 million more in November 2023 compared to two years prior.
The NRCC's record-breaking November gains are still notable given Johnson's lack of prior fundraising experience.
Johnson has won several elections n his short career in the House, but he's never brought in more than $1.3 million in contributions. Around the time he was voted speaker, he had only reported raising $553,013 for the upcoming 2024 election.
And since he had no history of winning over big donors, it was unclear how he'd perform with his new fundraising duties as the leader of the House Republican caucus.
All of the credit for the November fundraising effort can't all be ascribed to Johnson: After becoming speaker he quickly brought on one of McCarthy's top fundraisers to his team.
Not all of Johnson's fundraising efforts so far have gone smoothly. About a week after becoming speaker, he blasted out a fundraising email where he adamantly refused to "put people over politics."
Earlier in December, he faced criticism from the Human Rights Campaign for saying in an NRCC fundraising pitch that he feared "America may be beyond redemption" as evidenced by the number of kids who don't identify as "straight."
"What are they being taught in school?" he wrote.