Big donations rolling in fast for 2016 race

$1M gifts fuel super PACs as campaigns take in $380M

Unlike some GOP rivals, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton has seen more direct donations to her campaign than to political action committees.
Unlike some GOP rivals, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton has seen more direct donations to her campaign than to political action committees.

WASHINGTON -- Nearly 60 donors have given at least $1 million to independent political committees supporting Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls, accounting for about one-third of the more than $380 million brought in so far for the 2016 presidential election.

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AP

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s campaign has been bolstered by the Right to Rise super PAC and by NextEra Energy Inc., which owns Florida Power & Light.

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AP

A collection of super PACs supporting Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has reported raising $37 million, nearly all of it from three families.

Donors who gave at least $100,000 account for about half of all donations so far to candidates' presidential committees and the so-called super political action committees that support them.

In what is likely to be the most expensive election ever, super PACs and other outside groups raised more than $250 million during the first half of this year, according to filings through Friday with the Federal Election Commission.

That amount far exceeds what was raised during the same period leading up to the 2012 race and is fast approaching the $374 million spent by super PACs on the presidential campaign during the entire 2012 cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

"These groups have gotten off to a much faster start than they have in the past," said Brendan Glavin of the Campaign Finance Institute, a research group affiliated with George Washington University. "What will remain to be seen is how much can they go back to these people? Will they be willing to give again?"

That the groups raised a lot of money wasn't a surprise. Right to Rise USA, for example, had announced in early July that it had collected $103 million to support Republican Jeb Bush. Friday's filings, however, gave the first look into how giving has changed since the 2010 Supreme Court decision that opened the door for super PACs.

Political entities that, unlike candidates' official campaign committees, can raise funds in unlimited amounts, super PACs must disclose their donors, can spend directly on campaign advocacy as long as they don't coordinate with a candidate, though some are run by former aides or associates of the candidates.

The aggressiveness with which super PACs are raising funds also shows that the caution first displayed by campaigns after the 2010 decision has fallen away. At this point in 2011, only one of the 12 Republican contenders had a super PAC. That was Mitt Romney, whose super PAC's $12 million haul was less than the $18 million raised by his official campaign at that point.

During 2011 and 2012, super PACs supporting Romney had 30 donors giving at least $1 million while a group behind President Barack Obama had 35 big givers.

This time around, Right to Rise, which raised more than any other super PAC, relied on two dozen individuals and corporations to contribute at least $1 million and another 22 that gave at least $500,000. The largest single donor was Mike Fernandez, chairman of private-equity firm MBF Healthcare Partners in Coral Gables, Fla., who donated more than $3 million.

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 the governor's office, Bush penned an opinion piece in the state capital's newspaper urging regulators to approve the utility's proposed rate increase for Florida customers.

The publicly traded, Fortune 200 company contributed more than $1 million to Right to Rise this year, according to records -- not including cash from its top executive to Bush's campaign.

Kristy Campbell, a Bush campaign spokesman, denied any conflict of interest in Bush's relationship with NextEra.

"As evidenced by his strong record in Florida, Gov. Bush's public service was always driven by what was in the best interests of his constituents, nothing else," Campbell said. "As president, he would do the same."

Giving by the few

Just 130 or so families and their businesses provided more than half the money raised through June by Republican candidates and their super PACs, according to a New York Times analysis of Federal Election Commission reports and Internal Revenue Service records.

"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. "That's the biggest drive for most donors -- more prosperity for the country as a whole, as well as for themselves."

At least $13.5 million of the $20 million raised by Walker's super PAC came from just four donors: the Wisconsin roofing billionaire and union foe Diane Hendricks; the Ricketts family of Nebraska and Illinois; the New York investor Len Blavatnik; and the Uihlein family of Illinois, whose members descend from the founders of the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co.

Out of the $16 million raised by Conservative Solutions PAC, which is supporting Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, $12.5 million came from just four donors, including Norman Braman, a billionaire auto dealer and longtime patron of Rubio; the tech investor Larry Ellison; and a horse stable owned by the health care executive Benjamin Leon Jr.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a favorite of the Tea Party movement, has raised the most cash from the fewest donors. A collection of super PACs supporting Cruz raised $37 million, nearly all of it from three families. Robert Mercer, a deeply private hedge-fund investor from New York, contributed $11 million, making him the top known political donor in the country so far this election cycle.

America Leads, the super PAC supporting Chris Christie, raised $11 million. Hedge-fund billionaire Steve Cohen and his wife, Alexandra, gave the group $2 million, and another $1 million came from the Winecup Gamble Ranch in Nevada, owned by former Reebok chief executive Paul Fireman.

Real-estate impresario Donald Trump, who says he is worth more than $10 billion, has said he doesn't need a super PAC.

While more money is flowing to Republican-allied PACs than to the official campaigns, the situation is the reverse on the Democratic side: 80 percent of the money raised to support Hillary Rodham Clinton and her rivals went directly to their campaigns.

But Clinton's super PAC, Priorities USA, brought in $15 million, most of it from nine donors.

Entertainment mogul Haim Saban and his wife, Cheryl, led with a $2 million gift, and hedge-fund billionaire George Soros, historically one of the Democratic Party's biggest givers, donated $1 million.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has said he does not want the support of a super PAC.

benefits for some

The filings also hint at two sides to the Supreme Court's multiyear drive to deregulate the country's campaign-finance rules, which have whittled away at limits on giving. Super PACs, unleashed by the Citizens United 2010 decision, have become de facto campaign arms, increasingly undertaking the core costs -- advertising, polling and travel, for example -- once assumed by candidates, who are limited to raising just $2,700 from each donor.

"The 2016 presidential candidates and their individual-candidate super PACs are wiping out the nation's anti-corruption candidate contribution limits," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, which favors tighter restrictions on political money.

But the looser rules for super PACs also have helped expand the pool of candidates, allowing a small number of extremely wealthy people to jump-start contenders who might otherwise have difficulty raising enough money to reach the first primary contests next year.

The super PAC backing Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, raised almost all of its $3.6 million -- about $3 million -- from Little Rock agribusiness executive Ronald Cameron, for example. Two men, a Philadelphia-area options trader and a San Francisco tech investor, have provided more than half the money to super PACs supporting Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

"Big money gives us more competitive elections by helping many more candidates spread their message," said David Keating, director of the Center for Competitive Politics, which advocates for fewer campaign-finance limits.

Many say their contributions, which the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized as equivalent to free speech, merely reflect their intense belief in a particular candidate -- and in the political system in general.

"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.

"The voters still, at the end of the day, make the decision," he said.

"Clearly the action is with the super PACs and with people who can write seven-digit and bigger checks," said Henry Barbour, a veteran GOP fundraiser based in Mississippi who is informally advising former Texas governor Rick Perry in his run. "It's amazing, but a handful of people really can have a material impact on the race."

Information for this article was contributed by Tim Higgins, Gregory Giroux and Zachary Mider of Bloomberg News; by Nicholas Confessore, Sarah Cohen, Karen Yourish, Steve Eder, Kitty Bennett, Jeremy Bowers and Chase Davis of The New York Times; by Julie Bykowicz, Jack Gillum, Nicholas Riccardi, Thomas Beaumont and Ronnie Greene of The Associated Press; and by Matea Gold, Anu Narayanswamy and Jose A. DelReal of The Washington Post.

A Section on 08/02/2015

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