Impeachment Players, Party Leaders Lead House in Campaign Funds

House leaders and top advocates and opponents of Donald Trump’s impeachment and conviction were among the members of Congress who began the 2022 election cycle with the largest campaign bankrolls.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Intelligence Committee and the lead House manager in Trump’s first impeachment trial, began this year with $13.9 million in cash on hand. That led all House members, according to a Bloomberg Government analysis of campaign finance reports due this week to the Federal Election Commission.

Schiff, a House member since 2001, represents a safely Democratic district in Los Angeles County and was easily re-elected in 2020. His campaign fund could help him prepare a future expensive campaign for the Senate or other statewide office — or a re-election bid in 2022 under reconfigured district lines. He declined to comment when asked Wednesday if he’s seeking an appointment to be California attorney general.

Here are the 10 best-funded House members after Schiff:

Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), $10.9 million:Nunes, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, defended Trump amid federal probes into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. Trump awarded Nunes the Presidential Medal of Freedom last month as he prepared to leave the White House. Nunes, who’s also a member of the influential Ways and Means Committee, is in his 10th term representing a district that re-elected him 54%-46% and voted 52%-46% for Trump in 2020, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government.

Katie Porter (D-Calif.): $10.3 million:Porter amassed an eight-figure campaign treasury at the end of 2020 even though she was finishing only her first term in a politically competitive district in Orange County. Porter became well-known for her determined questioning of Trump administration officials in committee hearings, sometimes using a whiteboard to underscore her points and capture the attention of the viewing public.

Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), $8.4 million:Krishnamoorthi is in his third term representing a Democratic-friendly area that includes parts of Cook, DuPage, and Kane counties near Chicago. Republicans didn’t field a challenger against him in 2020.

Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), $8.3 million: A member of the Financial Services Committee, Gottheimer is in his third term representing a politically competitive district near New York City. He was re-elected 53%-46% in 2020, comparable to the 52%-47% margin by which Biden carried Gottheimer’s district after Trump won it in 2016.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), $6.3 million: As the top-ranking House member, Pelosi is a dominant fundraiser, though she doesn’t need to spend significantly to win re-election in her safely Democratic San Francisco district. Pelosi distributes much of her campaign funds to other Democratic organizations including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), $6.2 million:Scalise, the second-ranking House Republican, also raises significant campaign funds by virtue of his leadership position. His district in metropolitan New Orleans is strongly Republican, and Scalise often transfers surplus campaign money to Republican organizations such as the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), $6.1 million: A founder and the first chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Jordan zealously defended Trump against Democratic impeachment investigations on the Oversight and Reform Committee and the Judiciary Committee. Like Nunes, Jordan was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom late in Trump’s presidency. Jordan, who represents a safe Republican district, announced last week he won’t run in 2022 for the state’s open Senate seat. Jordan ran for Republican leader after the 2018 election but lost 159-43 to Kevin McCarthy .

Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), $5.2 million:Doggett, first elected in 1994, ranks second among Democrats in seniority on the Ways and Means Committee and serves as chair of its Health Subcommittee. He represents a heavily Democratic and Hispanic-majority district that includes parts of Austin and San Antonio and the Interstate 35 corridor between the two cities.

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif), $4.8 million:McCarthy, the top-ranking House Republican, was first elected in 2006 to a district that includes most of Bakersfield. McCarthy’s was the most pro-Trump district (57%) in California in the 2020 election, Bloomberg Government data show.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), $4.3 million:Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, became a leader of anti-establishment progressives after she toppled Democratic Caucus Chair Joe Crowley in the 2018 primary in an overwhelmingly Democratic district in parts of the Bronx and Queens. She’s one of Congress’ most skilled practitioners of small-dollar fundraising and social media.

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Giroux in Washington at ggiroux@bgov.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kyle Trygstad at ktrygstad@bgov.com; Bennett Roth at broth@bgov.com