Republican megadonors are opening up their checkbooks — and not being shy about the number of zeros they write — to help former President Donald Trump and other Republicans as Vice President Kamala Harris’ fundraising operation breaks records.
Major pro-Trump super PACs raised more than $200 million from major Republican donors over the summer, according to new campaign finance filings, including Miriam Adelson (the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and wife of late casino executive Sheldon Adelson), Tesla CEO Elon Musk, venture capitalists Marc Andreesen and Ben Horowitz, former Marvel chairman Ike Perlmutter, shipping magnate Dick Uihlein and more.
And that massive total doesn’t include fundraising by the main pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., which will file its fundraising reports on Sunday.
Adelson donated $95 million during the third quarter of fundraising to Preserve America, a super PAC she almost fully funds, 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 amid his strong support for Trump, gave $75 million last quarter to America PAC, a group that has spent more than $100 million supporting Trump.
Right for America, another pro-Trump group, raised $28 million last quarter — with multimillion-dollar checks from Andreesen, Horowitz and Perlmutter, as well as from Perlmutter’s wife Lara.
Uihlein, one of the most prolific Republican donors of the past decade, gave his outside group, Restoration PAC, another $49 million. The super PAC has spent heavily on the presidential race, as well as on the campaigns for the Wisconsin Senate and Maine’s 2nd Congressional District.
And Dianne Hendricks, a roofing billionaire from Wisconsin, donated $5 million to another group, Turnout for America.
The huge checks are just one piece of the campaign finance puzzle, as some groups made only quarterly announcements due to Tuesday’s deadline. The two most prominent super PACs entering the presidential race, the pro-Trump MAGA Inc. and the pro-Harris Future Forward, will not file reports before the monthly disclosure deadline on Sunday, the same day Harris and Trump will file their campaign fundraising reports for September.
Harris also has plenty of super PAC backup: Future Forward (known as FF PAC) had raised $200 million through August, while MAGA Inc. had raised $280 million.
But the more than $200 million in newly disclosed fundraising for other pro-Trump groups, much of it from prominent megadonors, comes as Republicans come to Trump’s aid amid Harris’ historic fundraising.
Harris’ campaign and its affiliated joint fundraising committees have already raised more than $1 billion since she became the party’s standard-bearer after President Joe Biden announced on July 21 that he would not run for re-election, NBC News previously reported, citing sources familiar with the campaign’s fundraising figures.
While the byzantine nature of presidential fundraising doesn’t immediately make it possible to independently verify that number, a new filing from the Harris campaign on Tuesday sheds important light on the enormous size of its fundraising operation.
Harris Victory Fund — the 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, Tuesday’s filing shows. Another Harris-affiliated account raised $19 million during the same period. That’s money on top of what’s raised directly by these entities, or in other affiliated fundraising funds, and that’s how the campaign reached the $1 billion mark.
While not a direct comparison, Trump’s two largest affiliated fundraising committees raised approximately $340 million during the same period.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
