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| San Francisco environmentalist and former hedge-fund manager Tom Steyer is the biggest super PAC donor of 2016. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) |
WASHINGTON POST
"A small core of super-rich individuals is responsible for the record sums cascading into the coffers of super PACs for the 2016 elections, a dynamic that harks back to the financing of presidential campaigns in the Gilded Age,"report Matea Gold and Anu Narayanswamy.
Close to half of the money — 41 percent — raised by the groups by the end of February came from just 50 mega-donors and their relatives, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal campaign finance reports. Thirty-six of those are Republican supporters who have invested millions trying to shape the GOP nomination contest — accounting for more than 70 percent of the money from the top 50.
In all, donors this cycle have given more than $607 million to 2,300 super PACs, which can accept unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations. That means super PAC money is on track to surpass the $828 million that the Center for Responsive Politics found was raised by such groups for the 2012 elections.
The staggering amounts reflect how super PACs are fundraising powerhouses just six years after they came on the scene. The concentration of fundraising power carries echoes of the end of the 19th century, when wealthy interests spent millions helping put former Ohio governor William McKinley in the White House.
(Here are the top 10 donors.)
Despite the mixed record so far -- the GOP candidate with the biggest super PAC war chest exited the race quickly, while the major candidate with the least super PAC support is the prohibitive delegate leader -- party strategists say the Trump phenomenon makes this campaign the exception to all rules. And donors are still expected to shell hundreds of millions of dollars more this year.
“I don’t believe that phenomenon is replicable in future cycles, and certainly not in down-ballot races,” said Republican campaign attorney Charlie Spies, who served as treasurer of the pro-Bush super PAC Right to Rise, which spent more than $100 million before Bush dropped out of the race. “So it is very hard to draw broad lessons from super PACs in this presidential election because of the overwhelming earned media advantage Donald Trump has had.”
The Post found that the top 50 contributors together donated $248 million personally and through their privately held companies, or more than $4 out of every $10 raised by all super PACs.
The biggest surge of cash is likely to come this fall, when millionaires and billionaires aligned with both parties fully engage in the fights for control of the White House and Congress.
Populist anger over how presidential races were financed led to a 1907 ban on corporations donating to federal campaigns. Forty years later, Congress prohibited unions and corporations from making independent expenditures in federal races.
The picture dramatically changed in 2010, when the Supreme Court said in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations and unions could spend unlimited sums on politics as long as they did it independently of campaigns and parties. The decision paved the way for super PACs, which are now a norm in federal races.
This year, the groups are attracting supporters who have made fortunes in a variety of industries. Hedge-fund managers and energy tycoons figure prominently among the top 50 donors, as do technology executives and owners of professional sports teams.