Never Gonna Give You Up: The Kochs Are Never Gonna Desert The GOP Presidential Nominee

April 11, 2016

The Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity is promoting the illusion that its given up on the presidential race, opting to focus its efforts and spending on down-ballot elections. The Guardian reports on a new “letter to big donors” from AFP’s CEO, Luke Hilgemann, in which he calls on the brothers’ donor network to reject the “cult” of the presidency and fight the temptation to “[put] all their eggs in the basket of one person as the way to solve underlying cultural and economic challenges facing our nation.” Indeed, Bridge Project’s already reported on the Kochs’ work to preserve legislative influence and mitigate the disaster for down-ballot candidates that would be a Donald Trump nomination.

The AFP donor letter then goes on to cite a number of the group’s recent “tremendous policy victories” at the state level: “slapping down proposed tax hikes in Indiana and South Carolina, expanding worker freedoms in Missouri and West Virginia, and stopping corporate cronyism in Florida – among others.” It’s certainly true that the Kochs are engineering consistent under-the-radar successes at the state and local levels. And AFP is already dropping money on Senate races, most recently running ads in Wisconsin on behalf of Senator Ron Johnson. In Ohio, meanwhile, the Kochs’ Freedom Partners Action Fund is running $2 million worth of negative ads attacking Senator Rob Portman’s Democratic challenger, Ted Strickland.

Maybe the Kochs are diversifying, but they aren’t abandoning the top of the ticket. Koch donors reportedly expect that the brothers’ “network will [nevertheless] pump big money in the fall to help defeat the Democratic [presidential] candidate.” And in the same Guardian story on the AFP letter, Freedom Partners Chairman Mark Holden similarly hints at the likelihood of significant Koch spending in a general election contest: “‘If during the general election cycle, a candidate or candidates were able to garner support from the public with a positive message in support of the issues we care about, and if they did not engage in personal attacks and mudslinging, we would consider potentially getting involved.”

You can forget the nonsense rhetoric on the Kochs being put-off by negative campaigning and “mudslinging” — misleading attacks are their bread and butter. It’s Holden leaving the door open for spending serious money in the presidential contest that’s the real takeaway. Charles and David aren’t sitting this one out, they’ve got to protect their profit margins.

Paid for by American Bridge 21st Century Foundation