Donald Trump has his billions, but Hillary Clinton has her billionaires.
As the candidates formally enter the general election
season after their conventions, the former secretary of state’s
wealthiest backers are pouring money into political groups opposing
Trump. Within the past year, according to a review by FoxNews.com, a
total of 24 billionaires have donated more than $42.5 million to two
Clinton campaign arms and three allied super PACs.
All this is in preparation for a blitz of advertising
and other efforts to defeat Trump over the next three months – as some
big-money Republicans stay on the sidelines.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman, for
instance, is joining industrial power-brokers Charles and David Koch in
refusing to back fellow Republican billionaire Trump. While the Koch
brothers plan to
stay out of the presidential race, Whitman is going one further by
stating she will endorse and help fund Clinton.
Whitman will be in some influential company. Her most
famous Clinton donor colleagues include movie producers Steven
Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, financiers Warren Buffett and George
Soros, and Walmart heiress Alice Walton.
The billionaire donations were given to Clinton
campaign funds Hillary for America and Hillary Victory Fund; and the
pro-Clinton PACs American Bridge 21
st Century, Priorities USA Action 2016 and Correct the Record.
The largest donor was Soros with $9 million, according to 2015 and
2016 Federal Election Commission records. This was followed up by
mathematician and hedge fund manager James Simons at $7 million and Haim
and Cheryl Saban, with $3.5 million each. Haim Saban owns the Spanish
television network Univision.
Most of the money is donated to PACs because
candidate campaigns are only allowed to accept $2,700 per donor.
Clinton’s overall campaign
total is $374.5 million and
Trump’s is $98.7 million through July 21, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Clinton campaign – which only recently put away a
primary challenge from Bernie Sanders, who boasted of his small-dollar
donations – stresses that the bulk of the nominee’s support is
grass-roots.
"More than 900,000 people contributed to Hillary
Clinton's campaign in July and the average donation is just $44,”
Clinton spokesman Josh Schwerin said. “That grass-roots support is the
true power behind this campaign as Hillary lays out her plans to build
an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.”
But the high-dollar backing from some of the
wealthiest Americans contrasts with some of the themes at last week’s
Philadelphia convention. Clinton, who called in her convention address
to get “money out of politics,” repeatedly has said her presidency would
work for lower- and middle-class Americans while taxing the wealthiest,
like Wall Street executives.
“I believe American corporations that have gotten so
much from our country should be just as patriotic in return. Many of
them are. But too many aren't,”
Clinton said during her nomination acceptance speech.
“It's wrong to take tax breaks with one hand and give out pink slips
with the other. And I believe Wall Street can never, ever be allowed to
wreck Main Street again.”
The super PACs, though, are a valued resource to push Clinton along in her quest to be the first female president.
American Bridge 21
st Century was founded in 2010 to provide opposition research to the Democratic Party by
following key Republicans and videotaping everything they say. The material is used to blanket airwaves and the Internet with their foibles. Its site is mostly
dedicated to the presidential race.
Priorities USA Action 2016 was founded a year later with the purpose of raising funds from wealthy donors. Its
website states “We’re all in for Hillary Clinton.”
Correct the Record’s mission is to “defend Hillary Clinton against baseless attacks.”
Despite the looming ad onslaught, Trump’s campaign is
voicing confidence about its financial position, after announcing an
$80 million July fundraising haul for the campaign and the GOP. The haul
marks a big fundraising surge, and comes close to the combined $90
million raked in by Clinton and the Democrats last month.
"The campaign is in good shape. We are organized. We
are moving forward," campaign chairman Paul Manafort told Fox News'
"Happening Now" on Wednesday.
While Trump also is willing to keep spending from his
own fortune to pad the account if necessary, Clinton enjoys a deep
bench with deep pockets.
The other billionaires who donated to her cause are:
heir to the Hyatt Hotel chain J.B. Pritzker and his wife Mary; Slim-Fast
founder Daniel Abraham; film executive Thomas Tull; entrepreneur Marc
Benioff; Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg; Jon and Pat Stryker, heirs to a
self-named family medical device company; scientist David E. Shaw;
philanthropist Barbara Lee; financiers John Doerr, Bernard Schwartz,
Roger Altman, Henry Laufer and Herb Sandler; and LinkedIn co-founder
Reid Hoffman.
Oprah Winfrey
stated on television that she endorses Clinton, but she doesn’t have any donations listed on the FEC website.
But one high-profile backer has decided to fund his own anti-Trump endeavors.
Billionaire Tom Steyer spent $1.9 million through his
environmental action organization NextGen to produce a television
commercial titled “
The Wall,”
which ran in California during the Republican convention. In the
commercial, Steyer and a group of young people stand in front of a
montage of Trump clips where the candidate discusses building a wall at
the border. “That’s not America,” Steyer states as the group says in
chorus, “Vote!”
Earlier this year,
Steyer told reporters
he would spend $25 million in an effort to turn out youth voters. He
historically has used the nonprofit NextGen as a political platform for
Democratic candidates.