The Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) announced they raised a whopping $51 million in the second quarter of 2018, breaking its own past records.
CLF ended the 2nd quarter of 2018 with $71 million in cash on hand.
This latest fundraising haul brings in a total of $93 million this election cycle for CLF.
In the second quarter of 2016, the last election year, CLF raised only $4.6 million and had $6 million in cash on hand.
CLF Executive Director Corry Bliss thanked the donors and stated how CLF intends to use the funds to keep the House of Representatives under the control of Republicans.
"Thanks to the leadership of Speaker Paul Ryan and Leader Kevin McCarthy in Congress, CLF continues to break fundraising records, raising more this quarter than CLF raised during the entire 2016 cycle," Bliss said. "Our donors are united in making sure Nancy Pelosi does not become Speaker of the House."
"CLF’s early and aggressive fundraising has already proven to change the political landscape this midterm election cycle – we’ve reserved more than $60 million in fall advertising, opened field offices across the country, and knocked on over 15 million doors to date," Bliss said. "CLF is committed to playing a major role protecting the Republican majority this fall."
CLF has staffers on the ground campaigning in 30 different congressional districts across the country which some have been at work since February 2017.
The most costly race for the CLF so far has been the election in Pennsylvania's first congressional district, according to Real Clear Politics.
The most expensive race for the CLF is that of first-term Bucks County Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01), for which the PAC has already reserved $4.1 million in television ads in the expensive Philadelphia media market. Fitzpatrick is running against a progressive self-funder, Scott Wallace, in a swing district Hillary Clinton won by two points and that has been reconfigured via court-ordered redistricting to bring in more registered Democratic voters. Volunteers and paid college students have knocked on 750,000 doors to pitch voters on Fitzpatrick’s work on bipartisan legislation to address contaminated drinking water resulting from chemicals used at a nearby military base.
CLF is the Super PAC endorsed by Republican leadership in the House including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.