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(Graeme Jennings / Washington Examiner)
The first time Jeff Miller showed up for work as a 17-year-old, $5-an-hour intern for the Kern County Republican Party, one of his supervisors, the district field representative for high-powered California congressman Bill Thomas, offered him a helpful fashion tip for his first job in politics. Dump whatever hideous-colored dress shirt you’re wearing, the 26-year-old Kevin McCarthy told Miller, gently. From now on, stick to solid white or solid blue.
Thirty years later, Miller is a connected Washington lobbyist with his own boutique firm, advising some of the most recognizable corporate brands in the United States — and a hard-charging Republican fundraiser and all-around GOP utility player. In the 2020 election cycle, Miller, on a strictly volunteer basis, bundled more than $11.2 million for Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and raised in excess of $100 million, combined, for the former president’s 2020 nominating convention and America First Action, at that time his designated super PAC. The day after the election, Miller started working the phones again, this time as co-chairman of the Georgia Battleground Fund, an effort organized by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to raise resources for a pair of Senate runoff campaigns. Miller ended up collecting $2.3 million for the cause, second only to GOP guru Karl Rove’s $4.2 million on a list of 85 prominent Republican bundlers.