T. Boone Pickens was one of the several Republican megadonors who did not attend a Trump fundraising event in Cleveland. Big-name donors skip Trump event A motley assortment of friends are writing checks to the presumptive GOP nominee.

CLEVELAND — Sheldon Adelson, David Koch, T. Boone Pickens and Paul Singer were nowhere to be found at Monday afternoon reception on the sidelines of the GOP convention for a super PAC supporting Donald Trump called Great America PAC.

Instead, the roster of attendees was heavy on rich businessmen and celebrities without much big-money political pedigree — including actor Robert Davi of Goonies fame, Christian radio titan Stuart Epperson, Jewelry Exchange president Bill Doddridge and Lending Tree CEO Doug Lebda.


They are among the assortment of relative big-money newcomers upon whom the presumptive GOP nominee and his allies are relying to help fund pro-Trump efforts that have lagged far behind those of his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. Her campaign and its big money allies are expected to raise as much as $1.5 billion or more, leaning heavily on a roster of multi-millionaires and billionaires she and her husband have spent decades cultivating.

Some of Trump’s allies, on the other hand, concede they’ll be lucky to raise one-third of that.

Part of Trump’s financial disadvantage stems from his late start to fundraising, which the campaign and its super PAC allies are scrambling this week to make up for. During the primary, the billionaire real estate mogul largely spent his own money and boasted that he didn’t need — or want — cash from big donors, who he bashed as puppet masters controlling his rivals.

But the bravado about his wealth and that of his friends masks the reality that Trump lacks the swelling rolodex of mega-donors maintained by more conventional presidential candidates. Many of the party’s big-money stalwarts regard him with distaste, at best, and show few signs of coming around.

"There are people who won’t give to Trump because it’s the socially incorrect thing to do, and also a lot of people are scared of Trump,” said Minnesota broadcasting billionaire Stanley S. Hubbard. He and Texas oil billionaire Harold Hamm ARE among the few established GOP mega-donors to show support for Great America PAC. Hamm attended Monday's reception, at a restaurant called The Hideaway, next to the Ritz Carlton here.

Hubbard has donated $100,000 to the PAC, which organizers say is nearing $20 million in total fundraising this cycle. By contrast, Clinton’s leading super PAC, Priorities USA Action, has raised $88 million.

Hubbard has donated $25,000 to the PAC, which organizers say is nearing $20 million in total fundraising this cycle. By contrast, Clinton’s leading super PAC, Priorities USA Action, has raised $88 million.

Monday’s event at The Hideaway here drew a few dozen attendees, and those who turned out were treated to appearances by Ben Carson and Rudy Giuliani, and promised the chance to pose for photos with Giuliani next to the Cleveland Cavaliers’ NBA championship trophy. It was on loan from the team’s owner Dan Gilbert, who recently has emerged as a top GOP donor and who has talked about supporting Great America PAC, according to a source familiar with the PAC.

Hubbard, in an interview before Monday’s event, said that establishment donors’ leeriness towards Trump seems to be dissipating slightly, but added that it might be offset because Trump “is going to attract a lot of new donors, people who haven’t donated before, because people are fed up.”

Indeed, of the 23 donors who had donated $415,000 or more to big-money committees supporting Trump through the end of last month, 15 had not previously given that much to all other federal campaigns combined, according to a POLITICO analysis of Federal Election Commission records.

One of them, California real estate investor Tom Barrack, has started his own rival pro-Trump super PAC called Rebuilding America Now, though he has yet to donate to it and it had only raised $2.2 million through the end of last month. Barrack, a close Trump associate, will be speaking at the Republican convention on Thursday. Another major Trump donor, Wall Street investor Steve Mnuchin, who is Trump’s campaign finance chair, since the mid-1990s had only donated about $130,000 to federal campaigns and committees, about half of which went to Democrats.

And, though Trump named nearly 100 well-known major donors and bundlers to the leadership of his joint fundraising committee with the Republican National Committee, most of them had not donated to the so-called joint victory committees through the end of last month, the period covered by the most recent FEC reports.

Doddridge, Great America PAC’s founder, conceded in an interview before Monday’s event at The Hideaway that Trump’s primary campaign hurt his prospects with big donors. “The problem with Trump’s primary is that he was bashing big money and he wasn’t overtly supporting any PACs. Now he’s changed his strategy, which I think that was always his plan,” said Doddridge, who met with Trump last week in Los Angeles.

Doddridge said that his $25,000 donation to Great America PAC— by far his largest federal donation on record — marks “the first election cycle I’ve been involved in a big way … I put in quite a bit of money to get this started – more than even a lot of the billionaires are contributing, but from my perspective, it’s up to the donor class really to put up the money if they want to win this election. I’m only one guy. I can only do so much.”

Great America PAC is not giving up on the well-known whales. Its officials are still courting Las Vegas casino magnate Adelson, who has signaled he intends to spend as much as $100 million to boost Trump, but has yet to give any money that has been publicly disclosed. According to fundraising sources, Adelson is expected to arrive in Cleveland before the end of the convention, and will be hotly courted by operatives representing all manner of campaigns and groups.

Doddridge of Great America PAC said he “was under the impression that (Adelson’s) money was going to come to us, but that maybe it’s just a hope and prayer. We have the infrastructure. We’ve been working on that for 4 or 5 months, so if we got the money we could spend it very effectively.”

The PAC’s officials wouldn’t comment on Adelson. But lead strategist Eric Beach in a statement said Trump “is bringing great numbers of new people into the GOP at all levels, and that includes the high dollar donor level. It is exciting to work with a new group of business and industry leaders who will help to fund a winning effort this fall."

During Monday’s event, Beach told donors that the PAC needs “to set the tone for everybody else in the country” on the airwaves. And he unveiled a new ad that invokes the deadly Orlando nightclub shootings to allege that Clinton and President Barack Obama are soft on terrorism, before being alerted to the presence of reporters and ushering them out before Giuliani spoke.

Trump needs to make inroads with traditional GOP donors if he’s going to compete with Clinton, said one bundler for Mitt Romney, whose 2012 GOP presidential campaign committee combined with the RNC and an allied super PAC to raise more than $1 billion.

“There is no evidence whatsoever that the new people have come anywhere near traditional donors,” said the donor, suggesting that Trump’s selection as his running mate of Mike Pence, a donor favorite, could lead to a thaw with some traditional donors.

“Mike Pence is well liked by donors and there is potential there, but people I’ve spoken with are going to wait and see if Pence has any influence,” said the Romney bundler. “If he has a voice in pushing the ticket to being less embarrassing, then I think donors may give in response to a Pence ask.”

Alex Isenstadt contributed to this report.

