Donors who gave at least $100,000 account for about half of all donations so far to candidates’ presidential committees and the super PACs that support them.
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“I think that the likelihood is that the lawyers who are representing all the candidates are saying to them, the commission can not get four votes to enforce any matter”, Ravel said.
“Big money gives us more competitive elections by helping many more candidates spread their message”, said David Keating, director of the Center for Competitive Politics, which advocates for fewer campaign finance limits.
That’s about double the more than $130 million the presidential campaigns raised in the first six months of this year, setting up a new paradigm for campaign finance at the federal level. Ted Cruz, $26 million for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, $16 million for Florida Sen. The concentration of donors is greatest on the Republican side, according to the Times’ analysis, where consultants and lawyers have pushed more aggressively to exploit the looser fundraising rules that have fueled the rise of super PACs. “How will candidates convince voters they aren’t beholden to $10 million donors?” It’s the largest single donation of the 2016 cycle so far. It’s also true that some of these candidates may enjoy vast resources, which they and their teams will invest poorly in the coming months.
Ted Cruz’s super PAC supports…
The nation’s most elite conservative donors are just as split as Republican voters are about whom to support for president – and it’s keeping numerous leading moneymen on the sidelines of the campaign as it barrels through the summer of 2015. Despite the growing public perception that super-PACs are playgrounds for millionaires, the number of people who have ever given $1 million to political causes in their lifetimes is small.
But Clinton’s super PAC, Priorities USA, brought in $15 million, most of it from nine donors. Together, the reports from the super PACs and the candidates will produce the first major accounting of who is paying for the campaign for president. FEC filings show that those four PACs, combined, have taken in a healthy $39 million-but only spent a teeny tiny little fraction of that on the senator’s presidential efforts.
In federal records released Friday, the trend was especially stark for Cruz, whose allied super PACs collected most of their $38 million haul from enough individuals to count on one hand. Entertainment mogul Haim Saban and his wife, Cheryl, led with a $2 million gift, and hedge-fund billionaire George Soros, historically one of the Democratic Party’s biggest givers, donated $1 million.
While donations to the candidates themselves are capped at $2,700, wealthy donors were able to give unlimited amounts to the super PACs supporting them – with a top contribution of $11 million given to Cruz’s committee by hedge fund investor Robert Mercer.
The former Florida governor raked in an unprecedented $103 million through his Super PAC, called Right to Rise.
Many say their contributions, which the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized as equivalent to free speech, merely reflect their intense belief in a particular candidate – and in the political system in general.
And Wexner’s wife, Abigail, doubled his money by giving $1 million to Kasich’s super PAC – which received about $7 million from Ohio donors. She has more than two-dozen years in the presidential spotlight, dating to her husband’s first run for the White House, and strong ties to big-money power bases on Wall Street, in Hollywood and among organized labor.
The Super PACs must submit forms reporting fundraising numbers by the end of the day Friday.
Also giving $1 million to America Leads, Christie’s super PAC, is a corporation linked to Reebok founder Paul Fireman.
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So while Cruz has made a host of positive headlines for the cash that his supporting super PACs have raked in, he doesn’t actually seem to have benefitted much from their largesse. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.
