Campaign-Finance Reform Can Save the GOP

If Republicans lose the House in 2018, expect the Trumpist right to start thinking very hard about the virtues of campaign-finance reform.

Late last year, as Republicans in Congress scrambled to pass a sweeping tax overhaul, there was a palpable sense that if they failed to do so, their most devoted financial supporters might revolt. One Republican, Representative Chris Collins of New York, told reporters, “my donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again,’” a message that surely concentrated the mind. Just after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law, a number of major donors opened their wallets to GOP candidates, as if to positively reinforce good behavior, much as one might train a wayward child. Fears of a donor strike quickly receded.

Since then, however, the enthusiasm gap between donors on the left and the their Democratic challengers in fundraising totals, a sure sign of vulnerability, and Democratic Senate incumbents in pro-Trump states are . Try as they might, leading Republicans have failed to drive home the urgency of their plight to their moneyed allies.