Has Donald Trump destroyed the Koch machine for good?

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AFP and the broader Koch network have spent Trumps presidency notching up as many wins as they can, maintaining a powerhouse they hope will outlast him. But the changes Trump made seem to be sticking. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the only Republican to poll close to Trump in the 2024 trial heats, is closer to the Kochworld on economic issues, but has made a political signature of using state power to dismantle progressive causes, which offends some libertarians.

Meanwhile, they clearly see their chance of a conservative resurgence as stronger now that Trump has certainly lost something. And the networks best case against him, which ran throughout AFP President Emily Seidels February memo, may be electability rather than ideology. Seidel not-so-cryptically identified a GOP nominee who represents a new chapter and could win, after AFP Action spent $33.4 million on 2022 candidates who lost, including Trump-backed candidates like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker in Georgia.

At last week’s national conservative forum in South Carolina, activists heard AFP’s opening to save our country and make a difference in presidential elections by paying $20 an hour to knock and expand its network of AFP voter.

“Did you know that 400,000 conservative South Carolinians did not vote in the last presidential primary?” asked a pamphlet issued by the AFP. On stage, between speeches by candidates Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, AFP vice president of government affairs Akash Chougule encouraged activists to join the winning team.

We have not only the best infrastructure but the best data, the best technology, and, I tell you, the best people, Chougule said. Launching the most aggressive, biggest, boldest effort we’ve had in the history of our organization over the next two years, because that’s what we think the next two years demand.

According to AFP, the group has increased its reach and influence, involving itself in 457 races last year, including 22 federal primaries and nearly 200 state-level primaries. Throughout the cycle, grassroots advocates knocked on 7 million doors, and more than 100 million pieces of AFP literature were sent to voters.

But sources around the Koch network, which was rebranded as Stand Together in 2019, are concerned that the AFP has tarnished its brand within the conservative movement, especially after the forced departure of longtime president Tim Phillips. A former AFP organizer summarized Trump-era Kochworld priorities and how they looked to MAGA voters as open borders and letting criminals out of jail.

During Barack Obama’s presidency, the AFP led a conservative backlash at rallies and agenda-setting conferences aimed at focusing tea party energy on their long-standing small government goals. Heading into the 2016 cycle, some commentators said their network had grown so large and powerful that it had actually become a political party in its own right.

Then came Trump, whom the network refused to invite to one of its last major grassroots events, and whose campaign they refused to let access to its in-house data network, i360. Trump sarcastically wished good luck to the puppets who traveled to California to ask for money etc. from the Koch Brothers at their donor conference in 2015.

His unexpected win in the White House has divided the Kochworld. Some operatives defected to his administration, and others stayed with the network, distancing themselves from the new GOP. Americans for Prosperity spent millions to support Trumps 2017 tax reform legislation, but a DC rally that year to show support for repealing Obamacare drew a share of tea party-era crowds. Their biggest achievement was perhaps the First Step Act, a sentencing and prison reform bill that Trump signed in 2018 before crime rose sharply as the party opposed similar efforts.

As Trumps presidency continues, Kochworld rebrands. Chase Koch, son of Charles and now executive VP of Koch Industries, cultivated a post-partisan image as his role grew. I find that focusing on things you can agree on can lead to amazing opportunities to solve problems, even if you disagree on a whole host of other issues, said the younger Koch to Politico in 2018.

The coalition that tried to nip Obamacare in the bud is using a similar new image, looking for bipartisan wins in an era of maximum polarization. After the killing of George Floyd, Stand Together CEO Brian Hooks co-authored an op-ed that celebrated how to change laws that criminalize poverty and reinforce systemic racism. And after this year’s election, Charles Koch told the Wall Street Journal that he regretted the partisanship his network did, refusing to say whether he voted for Trump or Joe Biden.

The AFP’s new approach reflects an attitude that is less government-bashing, more talk of personal empowerment. However, AFP allies will tell critics on the right that they have had a lot of success quietly lobbying for conservative bills in GOP-led legislatures. The question is whether their current pitch still has purchase among MAGA-era Republicans in a presidential contest.

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