Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump (left), and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Reuters
The nation’s wealthiest people opened their wallets in August with an eye on election season, donating millions of dollars to political action committees supporting Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump and Democrats and Republicans across the country, according to monthly reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday.
The largest single donation went to MAGA Inc., the independent political action committee that supports Trump, with $10 million donated to the group by Wisconsin billionaire bishop Diane Hendricks, a huge donor to the Republican Party.
Howard Lutnick, CEO of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, and Paul Singer, president of investment management firm Elliott Management, have donated $5 million to MAGA Inc.
Annette Caldwell Simmons, widow of businessman Harold Simmons, donated $2 million to MAGA Inc., while Warren Stevens, CEO of investment bank Stevens Inc., donated $1 million.
On the Democratic side, tech entrepreneurs were the biggest donors to FF PAC, also known as Future Forward, an independent political action committee supporting Harris's presidential bid.
The group's largest donors in August were Facebook and Asana Co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, Netflix Co-founder Reed Hastings and Twilio Co-founder Jeff Lawson and his wife Erica.
Moskowitz donated $3 million to the FF's political action committee, while Hastings, Jeff Lawson and Erica Lawson each donated $1 million.
Hastings, a major Democratic backer, was one of the biggest Democratic donors who publicly called on President Joe Biden to step down from his re-election campaign earlier this year.
The reports released Friday included donations only from Aug. 1 through Aug. 31, the first full month that Harris was the presumptive — and later official — Democratic presidential nominee.
Super PACs like FF PAC and MAGA Inc. are safe havens for big political donors like Hendricks, Lutnick, and Hastings because, unlike campaigns and their affiliates, super PACs don’t place limits on how much individuals can donate.
Further down the ballot, the Action Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee that supports Republican congressional and Senate candidates, received two major donations in August of $5 million from Jeff Yass, co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, a trade group, and Richard Uehlen, founder of shipping supply company Uehlen.
Yass and O'Leary are major Republican donors who have given to the Club for Growth and other conservative groups over multiple election cycles.
On the Democratic side, the House Majority Committee, a group that promotes Democrats running for Congress, received $600,000 in August from Amos Hostetter Jr., the co-founder of Continental Cablevision, the group’s largest donation during that period.
Hostetter has a history of donating to anti-Trump groups.
