Reinforcements are arriving, with big donors from both parties giving huge sums of money to politicians and outside groups in what is expected to be the most expensive election in history, according to new filings.
Timothy Mellon, a businessman who has donated heavily to super PACs backing both former President Donald Trump and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., took his giving to a new level in May, donating $50 million later that month to MAGA Inc., a super PAC supporting Trump’s candidacy. The donation listed in the report was dated the day after Trump was convicted in New York.
The donation, pending the rest of the filing on Thursday, is the largest federal campaign contribution by an individual this election cycle and one of the largest in history. Mellon has donated more than $100 million to political groups so far this election cycle, and his contribution to MAGA Inc. made up the majority of the $68.8 million the group raised in May.
Former New York City mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who ran for president in 2020 when there were concerns then-Vice President Joe Biden wouldn’t be able to beat his more progressive Democratic rival, has given money to help Biden’s reelection. Bloomberg gave $19 million to Biden’s largest super PAC, FF PAC, and The Washington Post reported that he’s given another $929,600 to Biden’s joint fundraising committee. (The committee isn’t required to file a new report until later this year.)
Also in May, venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz donated $12.5 million each to FairShake, a pro-cryptocurrency super PAC.
Republican megadonors Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, heirs to the Uihlein shipping and packaging company, have donated a combined $10 million to MAGA Inc.
Businessmen James Simmons and Fred Eichana, regular big Democratic donors, have given $6.5 million to super PACs supporting House Democrats (Simmons gave $6.6 million to FF PAC, Eichana gave $2 million to the group).
And Miriam Adelson, the billionaire whose plans to fund a pro-Trump super PAC were recently reported by Politico, donated $1 million to a super PAC supporting Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.
Last month, prominent donors were opening up their wallets, and one $10 million donation came from an unexpected source: The progressive group Movement Voter PAC reported receiving $10 million from a Massachusetts man named Jay Scheide, who listed his occupation as “unemployed.” Federal campaign finance records show Scheide has historically been a small-dollar donor.
Those figures are just a glimpse of the massive amount of money being poured into campaigns and outside groups ahead of the fall. Both Biden and Trump have raised hundreds of millions of dollars for their political campaigns, and hundreds of millions more are expected to be poured into key federal and statewide races.
Ad-tracking firm AdImpact projected that advertising spending alone would exceed $10 billion last year, a record amount even though it doesn’t include the vast amounts spent on campaigning and other aspects of organizing.
Fixes (June 21, 2024, 2:19 p.m.): A previous version of this story misstated the date that businessman Timothy Mellon donated to a pro-Trump super PAC. It was the day after Trump was convicted in New York, not the day.
