November’s presidential election is shaping up to be the most expensive in US history.
The campaigns of the presidential candidates are financed with larger amounts of money election after election. Most of the donors are among the richest and most influential people in the United States.
By donating, the super-rich can also buy influence in the White House.
Money has already had an exceptionally visible influence on the electoral situation. When the president Joe Biden was smoked out of the presidential race, it only succeeded when big political donors announced that they no longer wanted to finance his campaign.
More about the importance of money in the US elections in ‘s Mureneva maa series at Areena. What’s it like to be a rich fundraiser raising millions of dollars for a presidential candidate?
The power of the rich has grown even more
According to the United States Central Election Commission, the 50 largest donors to the election have pumped 1.5 billion dollars into the parties’ support associations, or PACs.
PAC stands for Political Action Committee, which can be translated as political action committee. According to the law, an individual donor can give a charity no more than $5,000 per year.
The importance of ultra-rich donors in the elections grew even more when the United States also approved the formation of so-called Super PAC associations in 2010 by the decision of the Supreme Court.
Unlimited money can be pumped into Super PACs. Newspaper of The Washington Post according to the majority of election financiers direct their support to Super PACs.
The richest man in the world lined up behind Trump
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump finance many of the world’s richest people.
The most important of them is probably the heir to the Mellon business family Tim Mellon. Newspaper of The New York Times according to him, by September he had financed Trump’s campaign with 125 million dollars.
Financial newspaper Forbes estimates The Mellon family is worth about $14.1 billion.
During the election, Trump was also supported by what was considered the richest person in the world Elon Muskwhose property Forbes estimates to be in the order of 250 billion dollars.
Musk has founded the America Political Action Committee foundation, which supports Trump’s presidential election campaign, and planned to finance the campaign with up to 180 million dollars, The New York Times says.
Also, with more than 100 million, Trump’s campaign is being supported by a billionaire who has become wealthy through casino and hotel operations Miriam Adelson. Adelson is known as a passionate supporter of Israel.
Trump has received other big-name supporters from entrepreneurs in the transportation industry Richard and of Elizabeth Uihlein mixed From Linda McMahonwho is known by her husband Vince’s along with founding the world’s biggest show wrestling company, WWE.
Linda McMahon served as director of the US Small Business Administration during Trump’s presidency.
Harris’s campaign collected twice as much funding as Trump’s
Although the Republicans have received the largest donations from private individuals, it was the campaign of Biden and later Harris According to Forbes raised significantly more money than Trump by the end of August.
Forbes estimates that Harris’ campaign raised $678 million, while Trump’s campaign is believed to have received just under $310 million in outside funding.
Also the Democratic candidate Horrible Harris the campaign is funded by some of the richest people in the United States.
For example, one of the founders of the LinkedIn networking service Reid Hoffman is known as one of the most generous supporters of the Democratic Party.
In addition to his own donations, Hoffman has served as a bridge between the Democratic Party and Silicon Valley’s tech billionaires.
A billionaire who got rich with investment funds George Soros is also one of the most loyal supporters of the Democrats, together with his son Alex’s with.
The Soros family has traditionally supported the Democratic presidential candidate with tens of millions of dollars, and the two have announced their support for Harris as well.
According to The Washington Post, a Super PAC linked to George Soros has been given more than $60 million.
With his media company bearing his own name, he has accumulated more than 100 billion dollars in assets Michael Bloomberg no longer funded by the president Joe Biden campaign as before. The New York Times describes the relationship between Biden and the Democrats’ number one donor as difficult.
The two verbally already took 2020 together presidential election campaign during. Bloomberg has also publicly criticized the Biden administration immigration policy.
However, Bloomberg, who is usually a late contributor, may play a decisive role in the Democratic campaign.
of The Washington Post according to Bloomberg, so far Harris’ campaign has been financed with 19 million dollars.
One of the founders of Facebook Dustin Moskovitz has so far not made a significant donation to Harris’s campaign. Moskovitz, who accumulated a fortune of 14.3 billion, supported Biden with tens of millions of dollars in 2020. Like Bloomberg, he may make a last-minute donation to Harris.
The New York Times also names by Jeffrey Katzenberg one of Harris’s most prominent supporters.
The former head of Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Studios and DreamWorks has good relations with the stars of the American entertainment industry. Katzenberg is known to have used his connections to collect election funding.
After the confirmation of the nomination, Harris has also got behind him a founding member of Netflix of Reed Hastings and the former Meta director by Sheryl Sandberg.
Harris was told in an open letter in July that they will support more than one hundred US business leaders. Among them was, for example, a billionaire known from the program Leijona luola USA, which was also shown in Finland Mark Cuban.
met the “bundler” who has collected funds for the Democrats for decades
Ylen’s US correspondent Iida Tikka discusses the importance of money in elections in the latest episode of his podcast series Mureneva maa.
In addition to the wealthy, one of the key figures in US election financing is the so-called “bundler”. It means a person who collects money for politicians and organizations through his contact network.
Tikka met one of them, who had collected money for the Democrats for decades By Barry Karas.
Karas acknowledges that American politics is about money. That’s a problem for him.
Tikka also met the decision that made Super PACs possible and an expert defending the power of money in politics by Hans von Spakovsky.
Ylen’s Mureneva maa podcast discusses, among other things, the power of money in the US presidential election. In the series, ‘s correspondent Iida Tikka takes the listener to the home sofa of a rich fundraiser.
The podcast also takes you to a small town bar in Minnesota, the oil fields of Texas and an important murder scene in Mississippi. The whole series now in Areena.