Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell isn’t the only one who is less-than-enthusiastic about the crop of Republican candidates running in this cycle of elections. While Democrats are racking up victories in special elections–including Tuesday night’s victory in Alaska over half-term governor and reality TeeVee start Sarah Palin–two major Republican donors have signaled they won’t be putting money behind any campaigns in the upcoming midterms.
Miriam Adelson, the widow of megadonor Sheldon Adelson, has not expressed her late husband’s ardor for political causes since his death at the beginning of 2021, according to Bloomberg. In the last ten years of his life, Sheldon Adelson donated an average of $50 million per year to Republican causes, PACs and politicians. So far this election cycle, however, she’s donated just $5 million to the conservative Congressional Leadership Fund, a Super-PAC for GOP House candidates.
The Widow Adelson may also be weary given that the fortune she inherited from her husband, a casino magnate, plummeted during the coronavirus pandemic, as the 433 million shares in the Sands casino empire lost 45% of their value. Now, the Widow Adelson has an estimated net worth of *just* over $27 billion.
The other persnickety billionaire who won’t give any more handouts to the GOP is Peter Thiel, who had given more than $20 million by January 2022 to Republican candidates this election cycle, but has since barely made a donation to anyone outside Arizona, much to the chagrin of McConnell, as the Washington Post reports.
As Republicans face a fundraising shortfall while Democrats seeing record revenues–largely due to the Republican joyousness over the revocation of the Roe right to privacy and statements by conservative Justice Clarence Thomas and Republican politicians that they will soon revoke the right to contraception, gay marriages and other individual rights–the GOP had hoped megadonors like Thiel would rescue them.
After Thiel put up $15 million to help novelist and political dilettante JD Vance win the primary, McConnell went to Thiel to help fund media buys for Ohio Republican Senate candidate, who is in a tight race with Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan for the state’s open Senate seat. Thiel declined.
While he pumped in as much as $15 million into the primary campaign of a former associate of his, Blake Masters, to buy the Republican nomination for Senate, Thiel has told McConnell he’s not donating anything for the general election campaign against incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly.
McConnell then reportedly went to Thiel to fund an $8 million ad purchase for Masters. Again, Thiel refused, forcing the McConnell-linked Super-PAC the Senate Leadership Fund to cancel the ad buy in a race that’s crucial for the GOP to win if they have any hope of winning the majority in the Senate.
Republicans will continue to make difficult choices on which candidates to support, and they’ll have to do so without the financial faucet flowing from some of the historic major donors. Why someone like the titular head of the Republican Party Donald Trump, who has reported raised tens of millions of dollars for his Save America PAC, has not donated more to candidates in tight races is unknown.