Vice President JD Vance headlined a big-ticket fundraiser Tuesday on Nantucket, raking in $3 million in donations for Republicans because the 2026 midterm elections draw nearer, The Publish can reveal.
The fundraising dinner, hosted at a non-public residence by Laura and Rob Reynolds with Dave Kelsey and Ozzie Palamo, raised a report amount of cash for any donor occasion on the Massachusetts island for the Republican Nationwide Committee, in accordance with a supply.
“Vance as RNC finance chair has been a difference maker already,” one GOP strategist mentioned.
“If you look at the DNC, there is no one with a similar stature headlining event after event for them.”
The RNC has already surpassed the Democratic Nationwide Committee in contributions in 2025, racking up greater than $96 million in donations and holding a warfare chest of practically $81 million.
DNC coffers at present embody a bit of greater than $15 million money available, with fundraisers flattening greater than $69 million because the begin of the 12 months.
Admission to the dinner on Nantucket set every attending couple again a minimal of $100,000, with membership within the “host committee” operating a steep $250,000.
Reynolds serves because the President and CEO of Putnam Investments and Chair of Nice-West Lifeco US, and has been credited with popularizing employer-sponsored 401(okay) plans.
He spent years as an NCAA soccer referee, which he says “sharpened [his] eye for spotting winning teams,” in accordance with LinkedIn.
Forward of the 2022 midterms, the GOP fundraising energy couple hosted a “Take Back the Senate Reception & Dinner,” which drew a lot of large title Republicans to the Reynolds residence, together with Vance, who was a GOP Senate candidate in Ohio on the time.
Palomo is a founding accomplice and managing director of Chartwell Technique Group, a lobbying agency specializing in communications, authorities relations and danger administration.
He was a former Haley fundraiser, however has now switched his focus to bundling for the RNC.
Kelsey is a managing principal at Hamilton Level Investments, an actual property private-equity firm that owns and manages multifamily flats.
Kelsey is a longtime GOP donor and based a political motion committee, CT Fact PAC, to assist elect Republicans to Connecticut political workplaces.
Demonstrators ended up picketing the occasion and berated Vance for mocking “childless cat ladies” in the course of the 2024 marketing campaign.
The feline-loving protesters, led by Miranda McGonigle, the creator of the viral “Cats on a Couch” Instagram web page, swarmed the island, which they dubbed “Meowtucket.”
McGonigle created her account in the course of the run-up to the 2024 election, taking inspiration from the resurfacing of his remarks in opposition to “childless cat ladies” within the federal forms — and an absurd canard that the VP admitted to partaking in erotic conduct with sofa cushions in his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.”
The demonstrations have been co-sponsored by the lefty teams Indivisible, Mass 50501, and Cape Cod Ladies for Change.
