Republican megadonors are opening their checkbooks to help former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris’ record-breaking fundraising efforts and other Republicans, and they’re not shying away from the number of zeroes they write.
Major pro-Trump super PACs took in more than $200 million from major Republican donors over the summer, according to new campaign finance filings, including Tesla’s Miriam Adelson (Dallas Mavericks owner and wife of the late casino executive Sheldon Adelson). CEO Elon Musk, venture capitalists Marc Andreesen and Ben Horowitz, former Marvel chairman Ike Perlmutter, shipping magnate Dick Uihlein and more, according to fundraising reports filed Tuesday.
And that huge sum was contributed by a major pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc. does not include fundraising by
Adelson gave $95 million to Protect America. super PAC it is almost entirely fundedduring its third quarter of fundraising after previously giving the group $5 million in the previous quarter. Preserve America has already spent $97 million on television and digital ads criticizing Harris.
Musk, who has increased his public political presence in recent weeks, against the background of his full support for Trump, gave $75 million to American PAC last quarterA group that spent more than $100 million to support Trump.
Another pro-Trump group, America the Right, raised $28 million last quarter in multimillion-dollar checks from Andreesen, Horowitz and Perlmutter, as well as Perlmutter’s wife, Lara.
Uihlein, one of the most prolific Republican donors of the past decade, gave another $49 million to his fringe group, Restoration PAC. The super PAC has spent heavily on the presidential race, as well as the Wisconsin Senate and Maine 2nd Congressional District campaigns.
And Dianne Hendricks, Wisconsin roofing billionaireHe gave $5 million to another group called Turnout for America.
The big checks are just one piece of the campaign finance puzzle, as Tuesday’s deadline saw some groups only file quarterly disclosures. The two most prominent super PACs playing in the presidential race are pro-Trump MAGA Inc. and Harris Future Forward will not file a report until Sunday’s monthly disclosure deadline, when Harris and Trump will present their campaigns. Fundraising reports covering the month of September.
Harris also has plenty of super PAC backup: Future Forward (known as FF PAC) had raised $200 million by August, and MAGA Inc. had raised $280 million.
But the fundraising of more than $200 million to other pro-Trump groups, mostly from well-known mega-donors, comes as Republicans flock to Trump’s aid. Harris’s historic fundraiser.
Harris’ campaign and affiliated fundraising committees have already raised more than $1 billion since President Joe Biden announced on July 21 that he would not seek re-election. This was previously reported by NBC Newsbased on sources familiar with the campaign’s fundraising numbers.
While the byzantine nature of the president’s fundraising did not immediately allow for independent verification of the figure, new filings from the Harris campaign Tuesday shed important light on the sheer size of his fundraising operation.
The Harris Victory Fund — a joint fundraising committee that raises money for the official campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state Democratic parties — has raised $633 million since early July. Another account linked to Harris earned $19 million during the same period. That’s on top of money raised by those entities directly or in other related fundraising vehicles, making the campaign hit $1 billion.
While not a direct comparison, Trump’s top two affiliated fundraising committees raised nearly $340 million over the same period.