Midterm Finance Report for Sept. 30, 2018
2018 Election Financing Data are from opensecrets.org, as of the 9/30/18 quarterly reporting.
Individual Contributions
We start with the major contributors, who give through PACs, Corporations, and Individuals. We report the sum of their contributions.
We limit this to leading contributors, and describe some of the top ones. We round off to tenths of millions of dollars. Democratic and Republican contributions are listed below. For shortness, we leave off the names of their wives.
1. Sheldon Adelson. 55.7 R
2. Thomas Steyer. 42.2 D
3. Richard Uihlein. 33.3. R
4. Donald Sussman. 21.8. D
5. George Soros. 15.3. D
6. James Simons. 13.9. D
7. Fred Eychaner. 12.2. D
8. Jeff Bezos. 10.2. 2/3 D, 1/3 R
17. Michael Bloomberg, 6.6, D
20. Robert Mercer. 4.7. R
Adelson, Steyer, Soros, and Bezos (Amazon) are well known political donors. Adelson is CEO and majority owner of the Sands Las Vegas, and other casinos. He also is a major donor and supporter of Netanyahu. Tom Steyer runs ads to impeach Trump. George Soros is often considered the arch rival of Republicans, but we see that there are two Democratic contributors ahead of him, and Adelson gave 3.6 times as much as he did.
Jeff Bezos now owns the Washington Post, and Trump has often criticized Amazon, the company which Bezos founded. He is now the richest person at 150 billion dollars. But Bezos also gave 3.3 million to Republicans, so Trump may stop that. These contributions are 1/15,000 of his wealth.
James Simons is the mathematician who founded Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund. He also is a co-discoverer of the Chern-Simons theorem in Quantum Chromodynamics.
Robert Mercer is now the co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies. He backed Breitbart, Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, and Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica is the British company that stole millions of Facebook’s data, and used them to influence the election, and run election analysis. This violated the prohibition on foreign influence on our elections.
Some Leading Organizations not in Individuals
American Federation of Teachers raised $17.9 million to Democrats.
The National Education Association raised $6.3 million to Democrats.
National Association of Realtors raised $15.3 million, with only a little given so far to D and R equally.
Koch industries raised $9.0 million going to Republicans.
League of Conservation Voters raised $6.6 million going to Democrats.
NextGen Climate Action (formed by Tom Steyer) raised $4.8 million going to Democrats.
The Senate Majority PAC raised $9.9 million going to Republicans.
PAC Contributions
The leading PACs contribute to both parties, and include the three major aircraft companies and defense contracts. They are Northrop Grumman at $2.6 million with 42% D and 58% R, Lockheed Martin at $2.2 million and 39% D and 61% R, and Boeing Co. at $2.1 million at 40% D and 60% R. All of this results from the Citizen’s United ruling, that businesses are considered to have the freedom of speech as people do. Considering that we have a $700 billion defense budget, this is peanuts. It is also tiny compared to the amounts given by the richest donors.
Final Senate Candidates
There are 35 Democratic Senate Candidates, and 33 Republican Candidates. The Democrats have raised $305 million, with $38 million from PACs, and $236 million from individuals. The Republicans have raised $127 million, with $16 million from PACs, and $68 million from individuals. The total raised is $452 million, with $55 million from PACs, and $316 million from individuals. There are other sources, like loans, and previous campaigns, so nothing adds up.
Final House Candidates
There are 430 Democratic candidates reporting, and 353 Republican ones. The Democrats have raised $423 million, with $108 million from PACs, and $276 million from individuals. The Republicans have raised $368 million, with $147 million from PACs, and $178 million from individuals. I will update this as more reports come in.
