The 100 biggest donors of 2016 cycle have spent $195 million trying to influence the presidential election ― more than the $155 million spent by the 2 million smallest donors combined — according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance data.

The analysis found that the leading beneficiaries of checks from the top 100 donors were Jeb Bush’s floundering campaign for the GOP nomination (a supportive super PAC received $49 million from donors on the list), Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton (super PACs dedicated to her raised $38 million from top 100 donors) and Ted Cruz’s insurgent GOP campaign ($37 million).


In fact, despite his attacks on his party’s donor class and establishment, Cruz, the Texas senator who won last week’s Iowa caucuses, appears to have locked down the support of four of the top six donors ― the Wilks family of Cisco, Texas (the No. 1 donor on POLITICO’s list), New York hedge fund tycoon Bob Mercer (No. 2), Texas energy investor Toby Neugebauer (No. 4) and Illinois manufacturing moguls Dick and Liz Uihlein (No. 6) ― but only one other donor on the list.

Conversely, a super PAC supporting Cruz’s GOP rival Marco Rubio raised just $22 million from POLITICO’s list, but the Florida senator appears to have the support of 14 of the top 100 donors, suggesting his ultra-rich supporters might be willing to spend even more to support him if he survives his widely panned Saturday night debate performance and emerges as the establishment’s best bet to knock off Cruz and national GOP polling leader Donald Trump.

The findings explain why, on the eve of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, the super PAC allies of Cruz and Rubio are circling like vultures around the megadonors who have supported rival GOP presidential candidates whose campaigns are floundering, like Bush, or those who have already dropped out, like Rand Paul.

The intensifying courtship of ultra-rich political partisans, which is occurring in private on both sides of the aisles in luxury resorts and phone calls, stands in stark contrast to the public discussion on the campaign trail, which is dominated by the concerns of the lower- and middle-class just struggling to get by. The phenomenon ― and the findings of POLITICO’s analysis of the top 100 donors ― illustrates the unprecedented influence of the ultra-rich in the second presidential cycle after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which cleared the way for unlimited campaign spending and led to the creation of super PACs

All told, the super PACs supporting Bush, Paul and the now-defunct campaigns for the GOP presidential nomination of Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, Rick Perry and Scott Walker raised $181 million through the end of 2015 ― the period covered by the most recent Federal Election Commission filings.

With a potentially protracted battle shaping up for the Republican presidential nomination, free agent megadonors could provide a huge boost to Rubio, Cruz and, potentially, Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and John Kasich of Ohio, who are banking on strong finishes in New Hampshire.

Meanwhile, Clinton’s super PAC allies are assiduously courting wealthy liberals as they gird for a potentially protracted fight for the Democratic nomination against the unexpectedly vigorous insurgent campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has decried super PACs and has relatively little support from them. While super PACs supporting Clinton in 2015 raised $55 million ― $38 million of which came from top donors on POLITICO’s list, including $8 million from the fifth biggest donor, New York financier George Soros ― they have struggled to win support from other top Democratic donors.

The 10th biggest super PAC donor of 2015, billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, has not donated directly to the pro-Clinton super PACs. He did give $5 million in 2015 to his own environmentally focused super PAC, which in turn gave $500,000 to American Bridge 21st Century, one of the super PACs backing the former secretary of state. But last month, Steyer signaled that he didn’t plan to endorse her and could be open to supporting Sanders in a general election.

Guy Cecil, chief strategist of the biggest super PAC supporting Clinton, Priorities USA Action, late last year rented a room at Washington’s tony Mandarin Oriental hotel to hold one-on-one meetings with wealthy liberals on the sidelines of a conference of the Democracy Alliance donor club, POLITICO has learned. The club’s members, a group that includes Steyer, at times have expressed concerns that Clinton is insufficiently liberal. But sources say that Cecil raised nearly $2 million from the group after just five donor meetings at the Mandarin during the Democracy Alliance conference.

Cecil wouldn’t comment on his courtship of specific donors, but he said his group has collected nearly $100 million in contributions and pledges. “I know we will be outspent by the right, but we are focused on raising the resources we need to fight back against the distortions of Hillary’s record,” he said.

Megadonors in the Citizens United age expect more than just a photo with a candidate in exchange for their big super PAC checks, said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that tracks political spending.

“There is a new attitude about the flexibility they have to play an outsized role in politics, not just by handing over the money, but by becoming part of the strategy and part of the campaign,” said Krumholz. Pointing out that some megadonors talk regularly with candidates and with operatives running super PACs dedicated to their campaigns, Krumholz said the donors “often have ideas about what they think would work,” and they expect to be heard.

POLITICO’s analysis of the top 100 donors includes contributions to super PACs through the end of 2015 that were disclosed to the Federal Election Commission, combined with analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics and an estimate of average small donation size ― $75 ― calculated by the Campaign Finance Institute.

The analysis doesn’t include money donated to nonprofit groups that don’t disclose their donors ― including groups set up to support Rubio, Bush and Clinton ― nor does it include donations to super PACs funneled through shell companies or other nonprofits in a way that avoids FEC disclosure.

Nonetheless, the analysis provides the most comprehensive, up-to-date snapshot of the state of play in big money presidential politics.

Among the other GOP candidates depending on strong New Hampshire results to boost their megadonor support, the analysis found that a super PAC supporting Christie had received donations from 13 top donors totaling $8 million — half of which came from hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen and his wife, the 14th biggest donors.

Christie, Rubio and Kasich are well positioned to benefit if they fare better in New Hampshire than Bush, who early on had effectively boxed out other candidates from winning much support from major establishment donors.

“There will be a small group who are Jeb and Jeb-only people, but the lion’s share will support whoever the alternative is to Trump or Cruz,” said Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary for George W. Bush. “It’s a potential on-deck circle, and that’s a very serious factor,” said Fleischer, who has relationships with a number of the GOP's top donors. He added that the potential avalanche of money from former Bush donors could be an ace up the sleeve of Rubio, in particular, heading into the March 1 primaries against Trump and Cruz.

But Cruz’s super PAC allies also have identified potentially fertile turf for cultivating new big-money support: the libertarian-minded megadonors who gave a combined $11 million to a trio of super PACs supporting Paul, the Kentucky senator who ended his presidential campaign last week after finishing fifth in the Iowa caucuses.

Scott Banister, a Silicon Valley investor who had donated $756,000 to pro-Paul super PACs (ranking him 83rd on POLITICO’s top donor list), told CNN he had “interviewed” Cruz “and while we don't agree on every issue, I believe he’s one of us.” Banister said he would be supporting Cruz, though he hasn’t committed to donating to a pro-Cruz super PAC.

But Philadelphia investor Jeff Yass ― the 21st biggest donor of 2015, whose donations included $2.8 million to pro-Paul super PACs ― told POLITICO he’s turned off by Cruz’s increasingly hawkish foreign policy, which is far afield of the non-interventionism espoused by Paul.

“I used to think Cruz was a closet libertarian — tough to think that now,” said Yass. Paul’s dropping out has him “licking my wounds for now,” he said, explaining he’s unlikely to back another 2016 GOP candidate anytime soon, if at all. “All hawks left now, except Bernie,” he said. “Not impossible I’d support Bernie. The president really decides whether we go to war or not, and Bernie is our best hope to stay out of war. On the other hand, he would shut my business down,” said Yass, whose company, Susquehanna International Group, counts among its specialties high-frequency trading and other techniques that Sanders has decried and pledged to regulate more tightly.

Representatives from the super PACs supporting Rubio and Cruz held events last week on the sidelines of a donor conference organized by the operation helmed by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch. Their twice-a-year gatherings attract many of the right’s biggest donors, including some of the most coveted free agents of the race, such as Wisconsin roofing billionaire Diane Hendricks, who gave $5 million to the super PAC supporting Wisconsin Gov. Walker and has yet to commit to another candidate since he dropped out. One source at the Koch gathering described her as leaning toward Rubio, but another said she intends to wait until next month to see how the race shakes out.

Though the Cruz and Rubio super PAC sessions were technically independent from the conference, they were held in the same Indian Wells, California, resort hotel that the Koch operation had completely rented out for their conference. And some attendees interpreted the presence of the super PACs as a tacit blessing from the influential Koch operation of the two candidates as the best positioned to block the possible nomination of Trump, who is seen by the Koch operation as heretical to the brand of fiscal conservatism they champion.

The session organized by Rubio’s super PAC, which was hosted by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer (the ninth biggest donor on POLITICO’s list) and pollster Jon Lerner, was particularly well attended, sources familiar with the conference told POLITICO.

Still, operatives connected with the Koch network urged donors to proceed cautiously before giving more to super PACs backing presidential campaigns, according to the sources familiar with the conference. They said that the Koch operatives, in a briefing on the 2016 race, questioned the impact of the super PAC supporting Bush, which raised $118 million last year but has been unable to boost the former Florida governor’s struggling campaign.

Some top donors from past cycles have been more cautious this time around, notably Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who has yet to pick a candidate or donate to any of their super PACs. Others are playing the super PAC field: Houston Texans owner Bob McNair (who has donated a total of $4.5 million, ranking him 13th on POLITICO’s list) has given $500,000 apiece to the super PACs supporting Rubio, Cruz, Bush, Carly Fiorina, Huckabee, Walker and Graham.

And still other major givers are already feeling burned out and disappointed by the super PAC spending spree, signaling they’re in no rush to give again.

Arkansas poultry magnate Ronnie Cameron, who donated $3 million to a super PAC supporting his state’s former governor, Huckabee, said he hasn’t been returning calls from super PACs that have reached to him since Huckabee dropped out, and had no immediate plans to give to any of them. “Maybe after South Carolina,” said Cameron, the 18th biggest donor of 2015. But he added he “may not do anything else” with super PACs for the rest of the cycle.

Dropouts’ donors usually take a breather before picking another candidate. Or they may wait for the nominee, said a Republican involved in raising money for a super PAC supporting one of the surviving candidates.

“They’re still being called, but they’re unhappy about the fact their candidate is out and they need a little time before they’ll write another check,” the super PAC fundraiser said, though he predicted that could change after New Hampshire.

“The action is going to be right after New Hampshire, because that’s when the field will narrow to three, maybe four,” said the Republican. “If Bush finishes poorly, that will create a very big scramble for donors because he has a lot of donors locked up.”

