Donald Trump And Paul Ryan: Speaker Of The House Won’t Risk His Own Approval Rating By Raising Money For Trump Campaign
Paul Ryan’s support for his party’s presumptive nominee, Donald Trump has been somewhat turbulent. Ryan was initially reluctant to fall behind Donald Trump. before deciding that the Republican party’s presumptive nominee would get his support. However, that newfound support doesn’t mean that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan will be actively raising money for Donald Trump, as Ryan doesn’t appear to want to risk his own approval rating in a bid to help Trump claim the presidency.
According to Politico, Donald Trump has recently called on the Republican party to help him in raising valuable campaign donations. As a key figure within the Republican party, it’s easy to imagine that Paul Ryan would be involved in that fundraising. However, Trump can’t count on the support of Paul Ryan when it comes to raising campaign money.
Donald Trump will likely have a number of key Republican names assisting him in raising campaign funds. However, the omission of Speaker Paul Ryan is pretty significant. That’s because Paul Ryan has consistently shown himself to be one of the most successful fundraisers within the GOP. His own political operation, commonly referred to as Team Ryan, raised over $17 million in the first quarter of 2016 alone, firmly placing him as one of the Republican party’s top performing fundraisers and a force that Donald Trump could have made use of.
House speaker Paul Ryan distances himself from Donald Trump’s position on banning Muslims from entering the U.S.https://t.co/wnKrQT6ivB
— Yahoo News (@YahooNews) June 14, 2016
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The aforementioned Team Ryan had $3.2 million on hand by the first quarter of this year. In comparison, Donald Trump had only $1.3 million, which goes some way to demonstrate the difference in fundraising ability between the Republican nominee and its most senior elected official.
Generally speaking, Paul Ryan is seen more positively than his party’s presidential nominee. In fact, according to the Daily Caller, not long after Apple announced that the company wouldn’t be supporting the GOP’s convention this year on account of Trump, the company announced that they would be supporting Speaker Paul Ryan, with CEO Tim Cook even set to meet the chief Republican for fundraising discussions. Despite Donald Trump, Ryan is still a name that many outside of the GOP are happy to work with.
Tim Cook to host fundraiser for Paul Ryan https://t.co/GaMLcmGlUB pic.twitter.com/u3bPzodX7M
— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) June 21, 2016
It’s easy to understand why Paul Ryan would want to distance his fundraising efforts from Donald Trump and it’s a trend that many within the party are following. As Congress leaves session next week, Paul Ryan will set off on a tour that covers California and Texas in order to hold fundraising events. In fact, many of his colleagues within the party are now also focusing their efforts on retaining control of the House and the Senate, believing that the GOP has already lost the presidency.
Paul Ryan isn’t the only Speaker of the House to avoid the presidential campaign trail and focus on the House. Former Speaker John Boehner did exactly the same thing when Paul Ryan ran with Mitt Romney in 2012. However, Ryan’s profile is considerably bigger than Boehner, making his presence much more valuable to Trump.
[Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images]
