Republican governor candidate Bruce Rauner has received the largest single cash donation of his campaign, today reporting the deposit of $2.5 million from billionaire hedge-fund founder Ken Griffin.



State campaign records show Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel, now has donated nearly $3.6 million to Rauner, a wealthy equity investor from Winnetka making his first bid for public office. Griffin's donations include more than $71,000 in use of his personal airplane for Rauner's campaign use.



Griffin is now the second largest contributor to the Republican campaign, behind Rauner himself, who has used nearly $6.6 million of his own money in challenging Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn.



With Griffin's donation, Rauner has raised $8.3 million since his March 18 primary win over three rivals.



In contrast, Quinn has raised more than $1.3 million since the primary but stockpiled millions more in cash since he didn't face a major challenge to win re-nomination.



Quinn's largest individual donor is longtime Democratic donor Fred Eychaner, president of Newsweb Corp. Eychaner has given Quinn just more than $1 million in donations of $250,000 or less.

