GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump noted. Additionally, the groups do not qualify for lower television advertising rates that stations are required to provide candidates. Just 130 or so families and their businesses provided more than half the money raised through June by Republican candidates and their super PACs.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has said he does not want the support of a super PAC.
The Louisiana governor’s sole million-dollar check comes from Gary Chouest, who owns a company that specializes in shipping. But a filing obtained by CNN shows that he’s only in for $5 million so far.
Million-dollar donors also featured prominently in the super PAC supporting Florida Sen. Perlmutter gave $2 million.
Hedge fund government Robert Mercer, for instance, gave $11 million to help Cruz. Among them was a $1 million donation from Shahla Ansary, wife of former Iranian diplomat Hushang Ansary.
The independent group supporting Mike Huckabee raised $3.6 million.
The chairman of an Arkansas poultry producing business, Mountaire Corp., Cameron has ties to the Koch Brothers’ political network. The FEC filings on Friday offer a complete look at fundraising abilities of Super PAC’s as well as the ultra-rich donors that support them. The billionaire Koch brothers’ PACs are expected to spend just under $890 million in 2016 to support conservative causes and candidates. Three other Keep the Promise groups that are supporting Cruz have not filed as of this afternoon. The Ricketts family owns the Chicago Cubs.
He has been referred to in the past by Cruz as a “key moneyman in the super PAC’s”. The Supreme Court has said that such coordination could be illegal.
CNN, which first reported on Carly’s PAC’s money, called the contribution “unusual”, which is certainly a nice way to put it. Of the remaining $36,000 that the PAC spent, $20,000 went to a D.C.-based polling company.
Also giving $5 million to Walker is Wisconsin roofing billionaire Diane Hendricks. The super PAC supporting former Florida governor Jeb Bush alone raised $102 million.
San Francisco investor Helen O. Schwab, wife of financier Charles Schwab, also contributed $1.5 million. 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. About two-thirds came from Kelcy Warren and Darwin Deason.
But Bush is expected to either match or exceed those totals in the second half of this year, and Right to Rise is projected by some Republican fundraisers to have $175 million or even more in the bank as 2016 arrives.
Jeb Bush is pitching himself as a clean-government reformer who rejects transactional politics.
“A $10 million check directly to a candidate’s super PAC poses just as a big of a threat of corruption as handing a check to a candidate’s campaign”, Ryan said, predicting that more multimillion-dollar donors are on the way.
Numerous top donations come from donors with ties to the previous two Bush administrations, including contributions from the former presidents themselves.
But now, that group — which has indicated it would focus more on grass-roots engagement — seems to be faltering, having only raised $250,000 in the first half of 2015.
John Kasich is drawing on some of his state’s top givers to bankroll his new presidential campaign.
“I’d think that the fact that I’m willing to spend money in the public square rather than buying myself a toy would be considered a good thing”, said Scott Banister, a Silicon Valley investor who gave $1.2 million to a super PAC helping Paul in the Republican presidential race.
“In the donor world, it is primarily a love of economic freedom”, said Chart Westcott, a Dallas private-equity investor who has contributed $200,000 to Unintimidated PAC, a group backing Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Central Ohioans, including Columbus residents, gave $16,278.
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In addition to the Cuban-American Fernandez, major donors include Rooney Holdings, Inc., of Tulsa, Okla., which gave $2 million.
