RUTHFULLY YOURS

The obits are hard to square with a surprising new number from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s political team: $27.1 million. That’s the amount they tell me Mr. McCarthy single-handedly raked in during the first quarter of 2021. It’s the most money any Republican representative has ever raised in a quarter.

It’s even more notable given it was accomplished mostly in two months: January was rough for Republicans. And it was done almost entirely without big-business support. Only about $450,000, or less than 2%, came from corporate political-action committees. How big is a $27.1 million quarter? Mr. McCarthy raised about $100 million over the entire previous two-year cycle, or an average of $12.5 million a quarter.

The National Republican Congressional Committee announced on Thursday that it raked in $33.7 million in the first quarter (about $5 million of which came from Mr. McCarthy). It pulled in $19.1 million in March alone—an odd-year fundraising record. And the National Republican Senatorial Committee, under Florida Sen. Rick Scott, had one of its healthiest Februarys in years, bringing in $6.4 million—despite a precipitous drop in corporate PAC donations. (It has yet to report quarterly numbers.)

The numbers are even more striking because they shouldn’t be. Republican voters remain demoralized over losing the presidency, and some are furious that more GOP lawmakers didn’t dispute the results. The party has yet to figure out how it will manage Donald Trump, and the potential for damaging clashes with the former president—over recruitment, primaries and issues—remains high. The Democrat-media complex is working hard to brand the party as racist, insurrectionist and toxic for suburban or minority voters to support. And Democrats crushed Republicans in fundraising last year.

So what gives? Here’s what the obits are missing: Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Nothing unifies the Republican Party more than the threat of an all-Democrat, progressives-gone-wild Washington. GOP fundraisers tell me their pitch to donors the past two months has been as simple as it has been effective: The only way to stop the left’s radical transformation of the country is to retake the House and Senate. That objective is bringing Republicans together and opening pocketbooks—and the more Mr. Biden pushes left, the bigger and more the checks. The unity is forming much faster than it did in 2009, the last time the Democrats took the presidency and both congressional chambers.

The fundraising also highlights the widening split between the GOP and corporate America and the risks to business of losing clout with its traditional free-market defenders. Media outlets crowed when dozens of corporations announced in January that their PACs would “pause” donations to the GOP in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot. “Republicans’ Corporate Money Problem Is Getting Worse by the Day,” exulted HuffPost in January, one of dozens of pieces predicting doom for a party said to rely on business dollars.

The reality is that corporate PAC money has faded in significance over the years, and the GOP message with this fundraising blowout is that Republicans can get by without it, thank you very much. Mr. McCarthy raised his $27.1 million from more than 50,000 unique donors, with average amounts less than $540. (By comparison, in the first quarter of 2019, he raised $22 million from about 6,000 donors.) The NRSC reports that half of its February money came from online contributions, and that it has seen a surge in small-dollar donors.

If anything, GOP fundraisers report that corporate America’s politicking is helping the party’s bank accounts. Many Americans are furious over the likes of Delta and Coca-Cola wading into the Georgia election-law fight, and a growing anticorporate wing of the party is donating to Republicans to make a point—and to encourage the GOP to make a break. This is potentially dangerous territory both for companies and the economy, and it may explain why some firms are now quietly “unpausing” donations, seeking to repair ties with Republicans.

Money isn’t a direct proxy for political support, and dollars alone don’t win elections, as Hillary Clinton proved in 2016. Republicans have tricky territory to navigate in coming years, from recruiting worthy replacements for many retiring incumbents to managing real divides in the base. Democratic contenders for key Senate races are already pulling in bucks.

But the GOP fundraising numbers show that reports of the party’s death are greatly exaggerated. The best tonic for restoring the Republican Party’s health is an overreaching Democratic White House and Congress.

Write to kim@wsj.com.