The Group Karl Rove Formed To Prevent More Todd Akins Is Broke

After debuting in 2013 to major media coverage and virulent opposition from conservative activists, Karl Rove's Conservative Victory Project political group is seemingly defunct. According to FEC filings, as of March 31, the group has $667 cash on hand after taking in only $2,214 in the first quarter of 2014.

Rove's Conservative Victory Project was announced in a 2013 New York Times article, which explained that the Fox News contributor and former Bush administration official was joining forces with “the biggest donors in the Republican Party” to create a group which would “recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts.” The Times reported that the “project is being waged with last year's Senate contests in mind, particularly the one in Missouri, where Representative Todd Akin's comment that 'legitimate rape' rarely causes pregnancy rippled through races across the country.”

Numerous conservative figures responded to the announcement by loudly and repeatedly ripping Rove and Conservative Victory Project for its supposed betrayal of true conservatives and attempts at “fratricide.” Several conservative activists went so far as to pen a letter to Crossroads donors imploring them to refuse to give money to the new group.

Whether it's directly attributable to the backlash or not, conservatives need not worry about Rove's Conservative Victory Project influencing Republican primaries this year, because the group is all-but-inoperative. As Media Matters previously reported, in the second half of 2013, Rove's group only brought in $10,798, ending the year with only $200 in cash on hand. The trend continued in the first quarter of 2014, with Conservative Victory Project apparently doing no fundraising. Between January 1 and March 31, the group brought in only $2,214, all of which came one of Rove's other political groups, American Crossroads.

While Conservative Victory Project is seemingly dead in the water, Rove's American Crossroads Super PAC continues to rake in millions of dollars, investing some of it in Republican primaries. National Journal explains that in the wake of the Conservative Victory Project kerfuffle, Crossroads' primary spending has shown the group to be “risk-averse” and treading lightly, avoiding criticizing Republicans aggressively and looking too much like the group is “handpicking” establishment candidates.