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'Thanks to Citizens United': 50 Megadonors Have Put Over $1.5 Billion Into 2024 Election
The top 50 contributors "skew Republican" but the list includes donors to both major parties, an analysis from The Washington Post showed.
Aug 26, 2024
Just 50 donors have contributed more than $1.5 billion in total to the 2024 federal elections, The Washington Postreported Monday, based on an analysis of Federal Election Commission data.
The Post's top 50 list, which includes contributions reported by August 20, is comprised mainly of individual megadonors but also includes some organizations. Most of the contributions accounted for in the list have gone to super political action committees (PACs), which can accept unlimited funds from individuals and corporations, thanks to the 2010 Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that loosened campaign finance law.
Monday's list led critics of the political system to lash out on social media, with one X user arguing that billionaire influence is undemocratic and leads to policies that hurt the working class, and another positing that it showed "capitalists bankrolling both capitalist parties."
Thanks to Citizens United and the Supreme Court.
Meet the megadonors pumping millions into the 2024 election https://t.co/PJHj74bm2U
— Jeff (Gutenberg Parenthesis) Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) August 26, 2024
The Post reported that those on the list "skew Republican" and the top several individual donors on the list are in fact Republicans.
The top donor is Timothy Mellon, an 82-year-old billionaire who was heir to a banking fortune and has given $165 million in total this cycle. He contributed $125 million to the Make America Great Again (MAGA) Inc. super PAC, which supports Republican nominee Donald Trump, and $25 million to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s now defunct campaign.
Kennedy withdrew from the presidential race Friday and endorsed Trump. Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who's now a a professor and progressive commentator, said the Trump-Kennedy union was no surprise, given that they shared the same "billionaire nepo baby" donor.
Number two on the Post's individual list is Kenneth Griffin, a billionaire hedge fund manager who's given $75.7 million this cycle, largely to congressional races. The top individual Democratic donor is Michael Bloomberg at $41 million.
The list's top organizational donor is Coinbase, a corporation that hosts a cryptocurrency exchange platform and pushes for deregulation of the industry. Coinbase made an $86 million contribution to the pro-crypto super PAC Fairshake, which spent heavily to influence primaries in both parties. For example, Fairshake spent $2 million to help defeat Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a progressive who was also the target of pro-Israel super PACs.
Coinbase is one of several cryptocurrency organizations on the list, as the industry moves to expand its influence in Washington. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Trump's running mate, reportedly has ties to cryptocurrency interests.
Super PACs aren't legally allowed to coordinate their electioneering efforts with campaigns but regularly do so, according to media reports, and in any case can wield great influence by, for example, buying advertising to support—or attack—a candidate. The FEC has also eased coordination rules for canvassing and paid materials.
Progressives have recently amplified their calls for campaign finance reform. Last week, OpenSecrets, a nonprofit campaign finance watchdog, released an analysis showing that super PACs had spent over $1.1 billion on federal elections through August 15, more than half of it on the presidential election.
OpenSecrets said this was roughly double what super PAC spending had been up until the same point in the 2020 cycle. The group found that MAGA Inc. was by far the largest super PAC spender so far this cycle, with about $125 million in outflows.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) spoke forcefully about the need for a better campaign finance system in a speech at the Democratic National Convention last week.
"Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections, including primary elections," he said. "For the sake of our democracy, we must overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move toward public funding of elections."
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As RFK Jr. Backs Trump, Here's the Secretive Billionaire Plutocrat Funding Them Both
Timothy Mellon, the reclusive heir to a Gilded Age fortune, has poured over $165 million into the 2024 election so far, with tens of millions backing both Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Aug 24, 2024
Joining Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump onstage at a campaign rally in Arizona Friday night, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to emphasize what the two share.
"We talked about not the values that separate us, because we don't agree on everything, but on the values and issues that bind us together," Kennedy said shortly after suspending his independent presidential bid to throw his support behind Trump.
But Kennedy did not mention that he and Trump have in common the same billionaire megadonor, a reclusive heir to a Gilded Age fortune who has pumped over $165 million into the 2024 campaign thus far.
Timothy Mellon, the grandson of plutocrat Andrew Mellon, has poured tens of millions of dollars into the campaigns of both Trump and Kennedy, making the secretive billionaire the top individual donor to both.
The campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets noted Friday in an analysis of Mellon's donations that the billionaire "made a $50 million cash infusion to pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again, Inc." in July, according to new Federal Election Commission filings.
"This brings his total contributions to the group to $125 million this election cycle, including a $50 million check he wrote to the super PAC the day after Trump was convicted of 34 felonies," OpenSecrets added. "Mellon's latest $50 million contribution accounts for over 90% of what MAGA, Inc. raised in July."
As for Kennedy, his hybrid PAC American Values 2024 received $25 million from Mellon earlier this year. OpenSecrets observed that Kennedy is quoted on the cover of the billionaire's autobiography, "praising Mellon as a 'maverick entrepreneur.'"
"He and Trump both shared the same major donor—billionaire nepo baby Timothy Mellon. RFK Jr.'s campaign was always a MAGA spoiler."
Robert Reich, the former U.S. labor secretary, wrote Friday that "it's no surprise" Kennedy dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed Trump.
"He and Trump both shared the same major donor—billionaire nepo baby Timothy Mellon," Reich added. "RFK Jr.'s campaign was always a MAGA spoiler."
Mellon is a member of a powerful group known as "guardian angels," a label "for big donors who supply 40% or more of a committee's funds and are a political group's top contributor," OpenSecrets explained.
Spending from super PACs and other outside groups has topped $1 billion this election cycle, and the largest spender to date has been MAGA, Inc.
But U.S. billionaires, who are collectively richer than ever, aren't exclusively backing pro-Trump groups. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has cut huge checks to Democratic PACs, and groups backing Democratic nominee Kamala Harris have received large donations from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Netflix executive chairman Reed Hastings, among other rich executives.
In his primetime speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) condemned the outsized influence of billionaire "oligarchs" on the U.S. political process, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling.
"Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections," said Sanders. "For the sake of our democracy, we must overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move toward public funding of elections."
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How Crypto Giants Are 'Exploiting' Citizens United to Buy 2024 Elections
A new analysis and call for a constitutional amendment comes as reporting sheds light on Sen. JD Vance's ties to a right-wing group backed by tech and digital currency investors.
Aug 21, 2024
A report out Wednesday takes aim at how giants of the cryptocurrency industry are using the 2010 Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which opened the floodgates for dark money in political campaigns, to make a massive deregulatory push ahead of this year's pivotal election.
Based on Public Citizen research director Rick Claypool's analysis of federal election data from OpenSecrets, the consumer advocacy group accused the crypto industry of "exploiting" the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling "to an unprecedented degree, dwarfing direct corporate spending by Big Oil and other corporate sectors in the 2024 elections."
Claypool found that crypto companies have dumped over $119 million into the 2024 federal elections so far, mostly through super political action committees (PACs) focused on elevating candidates that back their industry and opposing any skeptics.
"Nearly half (48%) of all corporate money contributed during this year's elections ($248 million so far) came from crypto backers," the report notes. Koch Industries, the conglomerate of the infamous Koch brothers, "is a distant second place," having put $25 million toward Americans for Prosperity Action and $3.25 million toward electing Republicans to Congress.
"That cryptocurrency companies like Coinbase and Ripple are able to spend over a hundred million dollars to silence crypto's critics and elevate its backers embodies everything that is wrong with the Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens United decision."
Since Citizens United, there has been at least $884 million in known corporate contributions to elections. Already, crypto corporations' spending for the past three cycles amounts to 15% of that total—and 92% has been during this cycle. The industry now only trails fossil fuel companies in election-related spending in the wake of the 2010 ruling.
"That cryptocurrency companies like Coinbase and Ripple are able to spend over a hundred million dollars to silence crypto's critics and elevate its backers embodies everything that is wrong with the Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens United decision," Claypool said in a statement.
Claypool stressed that "corporations can't vote. But the sole reason crypto is a hot-button topic in this election cycle is that crypto businesses are spending eye-popping sums to make themselves impossible to ignore."
"All this spending is a concern not just because the crypto companies may be able to buy deregulation," he warned. "This direct spending by crypto corporations is shattering a long-standing norm—and is likely to set a precedent for vastly more direct spending by corporations in upcoming elections."
Much of the industry's money from this cycle—nearly $114 million—has gone to the sector's Fairshake PAC and its affiliates. The report details how the group intervened in two Democratic primaries:
When Fairshake and its affiliates spend money to influence races, either by attacking crypto skeptics or boosting crypto supporters, the ads don't mention crypto at all. The super PAC spent $10 million on ads against Rep. Katie Porter in California's Senate primary and $2 million against Rep. Jamaal Bowman in a primary contest in New York. Rather than criticizing candidates for not sufficiently supporting crypto, both attack campaigns smeared the candidates' using unflattering claims having nothing to do with crypto policy.
In Bowman's case, he was also targeted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its affiliates for his criticism of U.S. support for Israel's assault of the Gaza Strip. Another target of both pro-Israel and crypto groups was fellow progressive Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who lost her primary earlier this month.
Industry use of Fairshake is expected to continue through November. The report points out that "the super PAC recently pledged to spend $25 million backing 18 House candidates—nine Democrats and nine Republicans—in the general election."
The report also lays out how both major parties' presidential nominees—former Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris—and their allies have been courting the industry this cycle:
- Donald Trump, who previously expressed skepticism toward the sector and whose Securities and Exchange Commission initiated tough enforcement against alleged crypto misconduct, has rebranded himself as the pro-crypto presidential candidate. Speaking at the Bitcoin Conference in July, Trump vowed to make the U.S. the "crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world" and proposed the federal government hold a "strategic bitcoin reserve."
- Trump's running mate selection of Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), whose background in venture capital and crypto-friendly policies, is seen as another pro-crypto signal.
- Kamala Harris advisers, meanwhile, have reportedly reached out to crypto corporations to "reset."
- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke at a "Crypto4Harris" virtual fundraiser in August, declaring: "Crypto is here to stay no matter what. So Congress must get it right... we all believe in the future of crypto." Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) also participated.
The new Public Citizen report—which concludes with a call for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United—was released a day after Reutersreported that before Vance joined the Republican ticket, "he co-founded a Silicon Valley-backed donor organization to finance right-wing news stories, voter turnout operations, and election polls."
"The existence of Rockbridge and Vance's link to it have been previously reported," the outlet detailed. "But three internal Rockbridge documents reviewed by Reuters and half a dozen sources familiar with the group reveal the scale of its ambitions, its roughly $75 million budget for 2024, and its role in seeking to influence November's presidential election."
"Rockbridge showcases how Trump's selection of Vance as his running mate could empower a new set of Republican businessmen: heavyweight tech investors who favor far-reaching deregulation," Reuters continued. "Many want to weaken the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates Wall Street, and reduce oversight of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence."
Meanwhile, in remarks cheered by Bush, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) declared at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night that there is an urgent "need to get big money out of our political process."
"Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections, including primary elections," he said. "For the sake of our democracy, we must overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move toward public funding of elections."
OpenSecrets revealed last week that outside spending during the current election cycle has hit a record $1 billion.
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