That the groups raised a lot of money wasn’t a surprise. Sally Bradshaw was paid $50,000 by Right to Rise by the end of May.
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“The Obama campaign treated Priorities like an unwanted stepchild”, said Steven Law, president of American Crossroads, one of the best-funded super PACs dedicated to helping Republicans.
A super PAC aiming to help Texas Sen. And a group aligned with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton received $7.5 million from at least eight billionaires, including financier Donald Sussman, investor George Soros and Haim Saban and his wife, Cheryl.
Bush’s largest corporate sponsor is NextEra Energy Inc., the company that owns electric utility giant Florida Power & Light.
In 2009, more than two years after leaving office, Bush penned an opinion piece urging regulators to approve the utility’s proposed rate increase for Florida customers.
Bush’s campaign did not immediately respond to IBTimes questions about the donations. “As president, he would do the same”. Friday night, however, was the deadline for the affiliated super PACs to submit their reports to the Federal Election Commission, giving a more complete picture of where the race stands, at least financially. Jeb Bush aggressively courted big donors in the six months before he announced his presidential campaign, when he faced no legal restrictions on his work with the super PAC. Of the $129 million those committees collectively raised in the last quarter, about $47 million, or 37 percent, was spent.
Out of the $16 million raised by Conservative Solutions PAC, which is supporting Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas); brothers Farris and Dan are religious conservatives who got rich in the fracking business. “Keep the Promise II” is the first of Cruz’s to report with Neugebauer as the only donor listed.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may not be leading in the Republican presidential polls, but his supporters are contributing six and seven figures to a super PAC supporting his candidacy.
The most prolific double-donator was McNair, the NFL owner, who contributed $500,000 to groups supporting Bush, Walker, Fiorina and Sen. And the FEC and IRS reports show that billionaire checks have not only dwarfed those of small donors who used to be the lifeblood of campaigns, but essentially built the foundations for many presidential bids. Jeff Yass, the managing director of the trading firm Susquehanna global Group; George Macricostas, the head of the data center company RagingWire; and Silicon Valley angel investor Scott Bannister each gave more than $1 million, account for 74 percent of Paul’s super PAC haul.
Still, Borges said, “we’re a swing state, so we’re going to have a varied group of candidates that will vie for support, I’m sure”.
The report also shows the Bush camp’s taste for the luxe and exclusive, with payments to the likes of the Four Seasons Palo Alto, the St. Regis in Atlanta and Houston, the Hotel Bel Air in Los Angeles, the Mandarin Oriental in San Francisco and the Union League of Philadelphia.
Fewer than 400 families are responsible for nearly half the money raised in the 2016 presidential campaign, a concentration of political donors that is unprecedented in the modern era. 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. Rand Paul of Kentucky. In many cases, the money given by five or fewer individuals or institutions is more than the total given by all individuals directly to the presidential campaign committees of these contenders. “We have now the regulated system by which candidates and events can increase restricted quantities of cash that’s disclosed, after which we’ve this rising universe of huge, limitless contributions, typically secret donations”, Washington Publish reporter Matea Gold stated Sunday on a “Face the Nation” panel about cash in politics.
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So far, most of the spending on the 2016 race for the White House has come from the candidates’ official campaigns.
