Vice President JD Vance headlined a big-ticket fundraiser Tuesday on Nantucket, raking in $3 million in donations for Republicans as the 2026 midterm elections draw closer, The Post can reveal.
The fundraising dinner, hosted at a private residence by Laura and Rob Reynolds with Dave Kelsey and Ozzie Palamo, raised a record amount of money for any donor event on the Massachusetts island for the Republican National Committee, according to a source.
“Vance as RNC finance chair has been a difference maker already,” one GOP strategist said.
Ron Sachs/CNP / SplashNews.com
“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 National Committee in contributions in 2025, racking up more than $96 million in donations and holding a war chest of nearly $81 million.
DNC coffers currently include a little more than $15 million cash on hand, with fundraisers pulling down more than $69 million since the start of the year.
Admission to the dinner on Nantucket set each attending couple back a minimum of $100,000, with membership in the “host committee” running a steep $250,000.
Reynolds serves as the President and CEO of Putnam Investments and Chair of Great-West Lifeco US, and has been credited with popularizing employer-sponsored 401(k) plans.
He spent years as an NCAA football referee, which he says “sharpened [his] eye for spotting winning teams,” according to LinkedIn.
Ahead of the 2022 midterms, the GOP fundraising power couple hosted a “Take Back the Senate Reception & Dinner,” which drew a number of big name Republicans to the Reynolds residence, including Vance, who was a GOP Senate candidate in Ohio at the time.
Palomo is a founding partner and managing director of Chartwell Strategy Group, a lobbying firm specializing in communications, government relations and risk management.
He was a former Haley fundraiser, but has now switched his focus to bundling for the RNC.
Kelsey is a managing principal at Hamilton Point Investments, a real estate private-equity company that owns and manages multifamily apartments.
Kelsey is a longtime GOP donor and founded a political action committee, CT Truth PAC, to help elect Republicans to Connecticut political offices.
Demonstrators ended up picketing the event and berated Vance for mocking “childless cat ladies” during the 2024 campaign.
The feline-loving protesters, led by Miranda McGonigle, the creator of the viral “Cats on a Couch” Instagram page, swarmed the island, which they dubbed “Meowtucket.”
McGonigle created her account during the run-up to the 2024 election, taking inspiration from the resurfacing of his remarks against “childless cat ladies” in the federal bureaucracy — and an absurd canard that the VP admitted to engaging in erotic behavior with couch cushions in his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.”
