The contributions from Sheldon and Miriam Adelson are the first the Las Vegas casino magnate and his wife have made this cycle to the Senate Leadership Fund. | Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images Adelsons shell out $25 million to keep Senate in GOP hands

Republican megadonors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson gave $25 million last month to the Senate Leadership Fund, the flagship super PAC charged with keeping the Senate in Republican hands, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission.

The contributions are the first the Las Vegas casino magnate and his wife have made this cycle to the super PAC, which is closely aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Adelsons gave $30 million in May to the Congressional Leadership Fund, the main GOP super PAC active in House races.


Republicans are widely considered to have much better odds of maintaining control of the Senate than the House. While Senate Republicans hold only a 51-seat majority, Democrats and independents aligned with them are defending 26 Senate seats in November. Republicans are defending only nine seats, most of them in deep-red states.

The Adelsons’ $25 million contribution constituted almost the entire haul of $26 million that the Senate Leadership Fund brought in last month and more than half of the $44 million it’s raised this year. The super PAC had $45.2 million in cash on hand on July 31, according to the most recent filing.

Senate Majority PAC, the main Democratic super PAC active in Senate races, raised $7.4 million in July, including more than $1 million from Karla Jurvetson, a California physician and the ex-wife of the venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson. Karla Jurvetson also gave millions of dollars‘ worth of stock earlier this year to Women Vote!, the super PAC affiliated with EMILY’s List, which backs Democratic women candidates who support abortion rights.

The Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs and his wife, Joan, together gave $1 million to Senate Majority PAC in July; so did the Greater New York Hospital Association, bringing the group’s total contributions to the super PAC this year to $2 million. Deborah Simon, an Indiana philanthropist, gave $500,000, bringing her total contributions for the year to $1.5 million. The New York investor Bernard Schwartz, the author Amy Goldman Fowler, the International Union of Operating Engineers and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union each gave $250,000.

Senate Majority PAC had $23.9 million on hand on July 31.

Other donors to the Senate Leadership Fund last month included Koch Industries, which gave $500,000; the investor David Herro, who gave $100,000; Encana Corporation, an oil-and-gas company, which gave $100,000; Marc Stern, chairman of TCW Group, a Los Angeles asset management firm, who gave $100,000; and former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who gave $30,000.

The Senate Leadership Fund didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a spokesman for the Adelsons.

The Adelsons have also given directly to the National Republican Senatorial Committee this cycle, as well as to the campaigns of several Republican Senate candidates, including Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada and Ted Cruz of Texas; Reps. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee; and Mitt Romney, the nominee for retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch’s seat in Utah.

