• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, February 3, 2021

Cozying up to former President Trump only offer short-term benefits for some Republicans.

Forget about Trump’s sway with his base. The bottom line is media exposure on TV networks/social media platforms, as well as political ad dollars, especially on TV platforms, coming from big corporate donors.

Ever since 147 Republican lawmakers opposed certification of the presidential election a couple of weeks ago, many top corporate donors have fled to the sidelines. Are they coming back?

Of 30 major companies that gave money through political action committees, two-thirds, or 20 of the firms, said they have pledged to suspend some or all payments to their PACs, according a report in The Washington Post. The other companies said they would review their political contributions.

Top corporate donors money, which eventually finds its way to political candidate big TV media buys -- range from $2.5 million from AT&T to $1 million from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Big Republican donors on this list also include: Comcast Corp., Lockheed Martin, Honeywell International, UPS, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and Marathon Petroleum. The top 20 said they will suspend donations to lawmakers who objected to election results; other have suspended all donations.

Of course, those suspensions could be lifted should there be some massive mea culpa.

But consider former President Trump’s ongoing efforts to continue to battle lawmakers, still claiming, without a shred of proof, that the election was stolen. All this while a second impeachment process gets underway. What will be the long-term (maybe near-term) effect, especially when it comes to the next big election for Republican lawmakers in 2022?

Will GOP intransigence put the kibosh on political ad spending?

Well, these days, political contributions don’t just come from corporate donors. For sure, there is much to gain from individual donor contributions, too.

Just look at the outgoing Trump Administration efforts to raise funds to pay for legal fees in connection with the election -- some 60 different state lawsuits. Trump raised an eye-popping $200 million, with only a tiny fraction — $10 million — actually going to legal bills, according to The New York Times.

Another $50 million went into online advertising, text-message outreach and a small television ad campaign.

Long-term, however, some of these individual supporters might not be looking to repeat the same level of donations -- for Trump or more importantly, Republican representatives.

The bigger picture for Trump rallying Republican support comes from a possible lack of big media exposure he once enjoyed. Tweeting? Twitter has permanently suspended Trump. TV networks? That looks to be limited. (Has he been on Fox News Channel since his departure?)

What about doing more big popular Trump rallies? OK, but who is going to pay for that? Are investors lining up to do business with Trump?

More fundamentally, where does the big political ad coffers for many Republican politicians come from now?