Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump
Credit: Reuters Photo
Quite a bit happened in presidential politics this summer. But the money behind much of it has been somewhat hidden — until now.
Much of the big money that flowed into outside groups to support former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris was disclosed on Tuesday in filings with the Federal Election Commission.
Both Harris' and Trump's joint fundraising committees — organizations that accept donations of up to nearly $1 million — shared their lists of donors, revealing celebrity and billionaire backers. Harris has been on an enormous fundraising binge since assuming the Democratic nomination this summer, and her high-dollar group raised more than four times the amount that Trump's did.
The very biggest donations were routed to super political action committees, which do not have contribution limits. And while Harris' main super PAC has disclosed its contributions monthly, most of Trump's groups had not done so since July.
Here are some big-money highlights of the new financial disclosure reports, which tell the story of the third quarter: July, August and September.
Musk's Trump budget: $75 million.
Elon Musk, the world's richest man and the leader of Tesla and the social platform X, has invested $75 million in the super PAC that he created this year, America PAC, according to the most-anticipated filing of Tuesday's deadline. That total was actually a bit less than some people close to the group thought he might donate; they expected Musk to clear $100 million in giving from July to September.
America PAC has been one of the most ambitious efforts from a political megadonor during this election cycle. Musk and his group of allied tech billionaires have sought to effectively start a voter canvassing program outside the Trump campaign itself. Musk intentionally did not donate any money before July 1 so it would not be reported publicly until October. His first contribution, $5 million, came on July 3.
Musk, who has emerged as a close confidant of Trump, gave $15 million in July, $30 million in August, and $30 million more in September. The group listed no other donors.
Musk also donated $1 million to Early Vote Action, a super PAC doing voter turnout work in Pennsylvania.
A smaller pro-Trump voter-canvassing group started by an ally of Sen. J D Vance, Turnout for America, raised only $18.5 million. That was less than expected for a group that set out to raise $45 million to mobilize pro-Trump voters and has gotten key support from the former president.
Adelson follows through on her $100 million plan.
Miriam Adelson has had a topsy-turvy relationship with Trump. But her fervent support for Trumpism becomes clear in the filings. She followed through on what her aides said she would do at the beginning of the general election, despite the sometimes chilly relations with the former president. Adelson put $25 million a month into her pro-Trump super PAC, Preserve America, in July, August and early September, and then $20 million more in late September. This was on top of $5 million earlier in the year.
Adelson, and her late husband, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, have always preferred to do their own thing, and Preserve America has no other major donors. Even after her husband's death, Adelson, to the Republicans who depend on her largesse, is dependable.
The Wisconsin shipping magnate behind Trump.
A Trump supporter who emerged as a bigger player than expected was Dick Uihlein, the CEO of shipping company Uline and one of the wealthiest people in the Midwest. Uihlein put a staggering $49 million last quarter into a super PAC he steers, Restoration PAC, which in turn dispensed most of his money into a collection of pro-Trump and other Republican groups, including Turnout for America. The super PAC has also run its own pro-Trump advertisements.
Uihlein's gifts to support Trump had been more modest until now; this spending puts him on the list of the very biggest disclosed donors from either party this cycle.
A super PAC with market savvy.
Another pro-Trump group, Right for America, took in $28 million during the summer months, including $5 million total from venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz in July, a week after they made a surprise endorsement of Trump. (Horowitz has since unendorsed Trump.)
In an unusual move, Right for America appears to have made some money by investing its assets, taking in $2.3 million in dividends, interest and other federal receipts over the course of the calendar year, per its report. Sergio Gor, the leader of the group, said only $800,000 of that money was interest, and it was because the group decided to deploy its assets into the market rather than keeping them in a checking account, as most political groups do.
Trump and Harris' big-money donors revealed
Harris' big-money fundraising committee, the Harris Victory Fund, raised a staggering $633 million between July 1 and Sept. 30. That is about 50% more than Biden raised during the same period in 2020.
It was, of course, the most consequential three-month period of the campaign for Democrats: Biden was replaced as the presidential nominee by Harris. (What was called the Biden Victory Fund became the Harris Victory Fund.)
Donors who gave the legal maximum ($929,600) or close to it included top Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel; crypto billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper, a longtime Republican donor; and philanthropists Melinda French Gates and Laurene Powell Jobs.
Trump's most comparable high-dollar fundraising committee, Trump 47, took in $145 million during the summer. Trump's backers included his usual supporters, plus some prominent names from the business world. People cutting six-figure checks included Andreessen, former Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder, fight promoter Dana White, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman.
The committee has recently been paying for Trump campaign events to save the campaign money. The committee's filing showed about $12 million in spending that otherwise would have been shouldered by the campaign itself.
The committee raised about $25 million more than a similar group did in the same quarter of 2020.
These high-dollar committees typically disburse their assets to the candidates' own principal committees, along with state and national parties. Trump and Harris' principal campaign committees, along with their allied party committees, won't file their fundraising reports until Oct. 20. Trump has said that in September he and his joint fundraising committees raised a total of $160 million; Harris' team, eager to avoid making her donors complacent, have not yet announced a comparable figure.
The Republicans behind those Kennedy ads
Super PACs sometimes take advantage of disclosure deadlines to hide who is funding their group for as long as possible. Now, though, even crafty groups have to disclose.
The New York Times reported earlier this year that one group that was promoting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s liberal positions had appeared, actually, to be a Republican operation. And indeed that's the case. The group airing those pro-Kennedy ads, SAG PAC, was revealed on Tuesday to be entirely financed by a pro-Trump nonprofit group, Securing American Greatness, with $15 million, as part of an attempt by Republicans to make Kennedy more attractive to liberals.
Another play laid bare by new filings was a dark-money organization called Building America's Future, and the groups it funded. Building America's Future, led by former top aides to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and which has raised money from Musk, was revealed Tuesday to be behind two of this cycle's most controversial super PACs, putting $16 million into those entities. The group also put almost $4 million into a super PAC called Stand for Us PAC.