Thread: From Only 158 Families, Half the Cash for the 2016 Race

From Only 158 Families, Half the Cash for the 2016 Race

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By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, SARAH COHEN and KAREN YOURISH
OCT. 10, 2015

They are overwhelmingly white, rich, older and male, in a nation that is being remade by the young, by women, and by black and brown voters. Across a sprawling country, they reside in an archipelago of wealth, exclusive neighborhoods dotting a handful of cities and towns. And in an economy that has minted billionaires in a dizzying array of industries, most made their fortunes in just two: finance and energy.

Now they are deploying their vast wealth in the political arena, providing almost half of all the seed money raised to support Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. Just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the campaign, a New York Times investigation found. Not since before Watergate have so few people and businesses provided so much early money in a campaign, most of it through channels legalized by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision five years ago.

These donors’ fortunes reflect the shifting composition of the country’s economic elite. Relatively few work in the traditional ranks of corporate America, or hail from dynasties of inherited wealth. Most built their own businesses, parlaying talent and an appetite for risk into huge wealth: They founded hedge funds in New York, bought up undervalued oil leases in Texas, made blockbusters in Hollywood. More than a dozen of the elite donors were born outside the United States, immigrating from countries like Cuba, the old Soviet Union, Pakistan, India and Israel.

But regardless of industry, the families investing the most in presidential politics overwhelmingly lean right, contributing tens of millions of dollars to support Republican candidates who have pledged to pare regulations; cut taxes on income, capital gains and inheritances; and shrink entitlement programs. While such measures would help protect their own wealth, the donors describe their embrace of them more broadly, as the surest means of promoting economic growth and preserving a system that would allow others to prosper, too.

Mostly Backing Republicans
Republicans

138

Democrats

20


“It’s a lot of families around the country who are self-made who feel like over-regulation puts these burdens on smaller companies,” said Doug Deason, a Dallas investor whose family put $5 million behind Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and now, after Mr. Perry’s exit, is being courted by many of the remaining candidates. “They’ve done well. They want to see other people do well.”

In marshaling their financial resources chiefly behind Republican candidates, the donors are also serving as a kind of financial check on demographic forces that have been nudging the electorate toward support for the Democratic Party and its economic policies. Two-thirds of Americans support higher taxes on those earning $1 million or more a year, according to a June New York Times/CBS News poll, while six in 10 favor more government intervention to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly seven in 10 favor preserving Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are.

Republican candidates have struggled to improve their standing with Hispanic voters, women and African-Americans.

But as the campaign unfolds, Republicans are far outpacing Democrats in exploiting the world of “super PACs,” which, unlike candidates’ own campaigns, can raise unlimited sums from any donor, and which have so far amassed the bulk of the money in the election.

The 158 families each contributed $250,000 or more in the campaign through June 30, according to the most recent available Federal Election Commission filings and other data, while an additional 200 families gave more than $100,000.

Together, the two groups contributed well over half the money in the presidential election -- the vast majority of it supporting Republicans.

“The campaign finance system is now a countervailing force to the way the actual voters of the country are evolving and the policies they want,” said Ruy Teixeira, a political and demographic expert at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

Like most of the ultrawealthy, the new donor elite is deeply private. Very few of those contacted were willing to speak about their contributions or their political views. Many donations were made from business addresses or post office boxes, or wound through limited liability corporations or trusts, exploiting the new avenues opened up by Citizens United, which gave corporate entities far more leeway to spend money on behalf of candidates. Some contributors, for reasons of privacy or tax planning, are not listed as the owners of the homes where they live, further obscuring the family and social ties that bind them.

But interviews and a review of hundreds of public documents — voter registrations, business records, F.E.C. data and more — reveal a class apart, distant from much of America while geographically, socially and economically intermingling among themselves. Nearly all the neighborhoods where they live would fit within the city limits of New Orleans. But minorities make up less than one-fifth of those neighborhoods’ collective population, and virtually no one is black. Their residents make four and a half times the salary of the average American, and are twice as likely to be college educated.

Most of the families are clustered around just nine cities. Many are neighbors, living near one another in neighborhoods like Bel Air and Brentwood in Los Angeles; River Oaks, a Houston community popular with energy executives; or Indian Creek Village, a private island near Miami that has a private security force and just 35 homes lining an 18-hole golf course.

Sometimes, across party lines, they are patrons of the same symphonies, art museums or at-risk youth programs. They are business partners, in-laws and, on occasion, even poker buddies.

Living Near One Another

Hildebrand Family
Donated $250,000
Nau Family
Donated $500,000
Sarofim Family
Donated $530,000Flores Family
Donated $250,000

RIVER OAKSCOUNTRY CLUB

HOUSTON

Half a mile
McNair Family
Donated $2 million
Ansary Family
Donated $2 million
Kinder Family
Donated $2 million
Krohn Family
Donated $250,000

More than 50 members of these families have made the Forbes 400 list of the country’s top billionaires, marking a scale of wealth against which even a million-dollar political contribution can seem relatively small. The Chicago hedge fund billionaire Kenneth C. Griffin, for example, earns about $68.5 million a month after taxes, according to court filings made by his wife in their divorce. He has given a total of $300,000 to groups backing Republican presidential candidates. That is a huge sum on its face, yet is the equivalent of only $21.17 for a typical American household, according to Congressional Budget Office data on after-tax income.

The donor families’ wealth reflects, in part, the vast growth of the financial-services sector and the boom in oil and gas, which have helped transform the American economy in recent decades. They are also the beneficiaries of political and economic forces that are driving widening inequality: As the share of national wealth and income going to the middle class has shrunk, these families are among those whose share has grown.

Mainly in Finance and Energy
Finance

64

Real estate and
construction

17

Energy and
natural resources

15

Majority in hedge funds, private equity or venture capital.

Mostly oil and gas.

9

Transportation

Media and entertainment

12

Health

10

Technology

12

Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets, whose family founded Johnson & Johnson.

Trucking, autos, cruise ships.

Hollywood moguls like Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Retail and manufacturing

6

Food, beverage,
agriculture

Insurance

3

Other/unknown

5

5

Includes citrus, poultry and sugar magnates.



The accumulation of wealth has been particularly rapid at the elite levels of Wall Street, where financiers who once managed other people’s capital now, increasingly, own it themselves.

Since 1979,according to one study, the one-tenth of 1 percent of American taxpayers who work in finance have roughly quintupled their share of the country’s income. Sixty-four of the families made their wealth in finance, the largest single faction among the super-donors of 2016.

But instead of working their way up to the executive suite at Goldman Sachs or Exxon, most of these donors set out on their own, establishing privately held firms controlled individually or with partners. In finance, they started hedge funds, or formed private equity and venture capital firms, benefiting from favorable tax treatment of debt and capital gains, and more recently from a rising stock market and low interest rates. In energy, some were latter-day wildcatters, early to capitalize on the new drilling technologies and high energy prices that made it economical to exploit shale formations in North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas. Others made fortunes supplying those wildcatters with pipelines, trucks and equipment for “fracking.”

In both energy and finance, their businesses, when successful, could throw off enormous amounts of cash — unlike industries in which wealth might have been tied up in investments. Those without shareholders or boards of directors have had unusual freedom to indulge their political passions. Together, the two industries accounted for well over half of the cash contributed by the top 158 families.

Tend to Be Self-Made
Self-made wealth

119

Inherited wealth

37


“When I look at these families, these are highly successful people, they’re used to moving mountains, and they love to beat the conventional wisdom,” said David McCurdy, a former Oklahoma congressman who is now president of the American Gas Association.

Indeed, while blue-chip corporations largely shy away from super PACs, wary of negative publicity about unlimited campaign spending, these families have poured millions of dollars into such efforts.

Some are even betting on candidates shunned by their party’s traditional donor establishment. The three families who have provided the largest donations in the campaign to date — the Wilks family of Texas, which made billions providing trucks and equipment in the shale fields; the Mercers of New York, headed by the hedge fund investor Robert Mercer; and Toby Neugebauer, a Texas-born private equity investor — have backed Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a socially conservative Tea Party firebrand disdained by Republican leaders.

“Making a big bet on something before anyone else really grasps it. That is what success has in common in energy and in equities,” said Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group with ties to Charles G. and David H. Koch.

A number of the families are tied to networks of ideological donors who, on the left and the right alike, have sought to fundamentally reshape their own political parties. More than a dozen donors or members of their families have been involved with the twice-yearly seminars hosted by the Kochs, whose organizations have pressed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups to eliminate the Export-Import Bank. They include Mr. Deason and his wife; the brokerage pioneer Charles Schwab, whose wife, Helen, is among the donors; and Karen Buchwald Wright, whose family company makescompressors used to extract and transport natural gas.

“Most of the people at the Koch seminars are entrepreneurs who have built it from the ground up — they built it themselves,” said Mr. Deason, who said he supported eliminating corporate subsidies and welfare, including those that benefit his own investments.

Another group of the families, including the hedge fund investor George Soros and his son Jonathan, have ties to the Democracy Alliance, a network of liberal donors who have pushed Democrats to move aggressively on climate change legislation and progressive taxation. Those donors, many of them from Hollywood or Wall Street, have put millions of dollars behind Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The families who give do so, to some extent, because of personal, regional and professional ties to the candidates. Jeb Bush’s father made money in the oil business, while Mr. Bush himself earned millions of dollars on Wall Street. Some of the candidates most popular among ultrawealthy donors have also served in elected office in Florida and Texas, two states that are home to many of the affluent families on the list.



Two of the donors live on Indian Creek Island Road in Florida, the most expensive street in the United States, according to Zillow. Richard Cavalleri/Shutterstock

But the giving, more broadly, reflects the political stakes this year for the families and businesses that have moved most aggressively to take advantage of Citizens United, particularly in the energy and finance industries.

The Obama administration, Democrats in Congress and even Mr. Bush have argued for tax and regulatory shifts that could subject many venture capital and private equity firms to higher levels of corporate or investment taxation. Hedge funds, which historically were lightly regulated, are bound by new rules with the Dodd-Frank regulations, which several Republican candidates have pledged to roll back and which Mrs. Clinton has pledged to defend.

And while the shale boom has generated new fortunes, it has also produced a glut of oil that is now driving down prices.

Most in the industry favor lifting the 40-year-old ban on exporting oil, which would give domestic producers access to new customers overseas, and approval of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline.

“They don’t want anything from the government except that they’d like to export oil, and most of them want the Keystone pipeline,” T. Boone Pickens, the investor and natural gas advocate, said about his colleagues in the energy business.

“If you look at the oil and gas industry, it has done wonders for the country. They paid a lot of taxes, and people still attack you,” said Mr. Pickens, who has donated $125,000 to groups supporting Mr. Bush or Carly Fiorina. “They’re entrepreneurs, and they have opinions about everything.”

Sources: F.E.C. and I.R.S. filings; voter registrations; property assessment and deed records; corporate filings. One primary house and industry per family is shown.

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From Fracking to Finance, a Torrent of Campaign Cash

By ERIC LICHTBLAU and NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
OCT. 10, 2015

WASH.

Each dot representsa family of donors.

MONT.
ME.
N.D.

Joe and MarleneRicketts, owners of the Chicago Cubs, gave $5 million to Scott Walker’s organization.

MINN.
VT.
ORE.
N.H.

Boston

NEWYORK
WIS.
IDAHO

Detroit

MASS.

S.D.
CONN.
MICH.
WYO.

New York
area

N.J.

IOWA
PA.

Chicago

NEV.

Philadelphia
OHIO

NEB.

MD.

IND.

San Francisco
area

Fort Collins

ILL.
UTAH

Robert Mercer, hedge-fund magnate, contributed $11 million to the super PAC backing Ted Cruz.

Columbus

COLO.
W. VA.
KAN.

St. Louis

VA.

The Wilks family, fracking-business billionaires, donated$15 million in support of Ted Cruz.

MO.
KY.
CALIF.

Branson

N.C.
TENN.
ARIZ.
OKLA.
ARK.
N.M.

Los Angeles
area

S.C.

Little Rock

Atlanta

Dallas

ALA.
GA.
MISS.
LA.

Midland

TEXAS

Baton Rouge

Hong
Kong

FLA.

Palm Beach area

San Antonio

Houston

PuertoRico

Miami


Sources: F.E.C. and I.R.S. filings; voter registrations; property assessment and deed records; corporate filings. One primary house per family is shown.


A look at some of the business, personal and ideological ties that bind megadonors in the 2016 presidential campaign.

The Frackers

The great American energy boom of the last decade has produced a wave of new billionaires and multimillionaires. Now they are throwing tens of millions of dollars into the presidential campaign, with the biggest checks going almost exclusively to Republicans and their “super PACs.” The top donors include Trevor Rees-Jones, who left a law practice in Dallas and turned $4,000 in savings into an energy empire as the head of Chief Oil and Gas; Dan and Farris Wilks, abortion opponents whose trucking and equipment business struck gold in the fracking boom; and Karen Buchwald Wright, the head of Ariel Corporation, an Ohio manufacturer of gas compressors.

Old Oil

RELATED COVERAGE

• 
  
  
  The Families Funding the 2016 Presidential Election OCT. 10, 2015
  
  

Established Texas oil families are deeply involved in the campaign, too. Descendants of the late gambler and oil speculator H.L. Hunt – once thought to be the richest man in America – account for at least $2.3 million in donations in this presidential campaign.

Mr. Hunt’s fortune, feuds and multiple marriages are the stuff of legend: In the late 1970s, two of his sons reputedly tried to corner the silver market, and some say the Hunts inspired the classic television series “Dallas.” At least three of his descendants have followed his path in Republican politics in the 2016 campaign. Among them is Ray Lee Hunt, the sole surviving Hunt heir with enough wealth to make the Forbes list of billionaires. (Mr. Hunt is No. 92 in the United States.) The family business, Hunt Oil, remains among the largest privately held oil companies in the country. Mr. Hunt and his wife have put more than $2 million behind Mr. Bush.

Hedge Fund Partners, Political Opposites

They may disagree on politics, but they earned fortunes together. The hedge fund investor George Soros, who earned $1 billion in a bet against the British pound in 1992, is a prominent liberal donor and philanthropist who has given $1 million to a super PAC backing Hillary Rodham Clinton. His partner on that trade was Stanley F. Druckenmiller, who would become a prominent hedge fund manager in his own right, and is now close to Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican. Mr. Druckenmiller is a strong advocate of reduced spending on entitlement programs, which he has called “current seniors stealing from future seniors.” He has put a total of more than $300,000 behind Mr. Christie, Jeb Bush and Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio.

Mystery Money

Some of the largest donations came from donors whose backgrounds and occupations were difficult to determine from public records. A man named Chen Shu Te gave $500,000 to Right to Rise USA, a super PAC backing Mr. Bush, which told the Federal Election Commission that Mr. Chen lives in Hong Kong. But public records reveal almost nothing about him, or even if he is an American citizen. (Green card holders may contribute, but other foreign nationals may not.)

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in other contributions came from limited liability corporations whose ownership is unclear. Among them is TH Holdings L.L.C., which shares a New York City office suite with Neuberger Berman, an investment management firm headed by a cousin of Mr. Bush’s.

More than a dozen of the firm’s other employees or executives have given to Mr. Bush’s campaign or the super PAC, but under their own names.

Dallas Royalty

The Preston Hollow neighborhood, home to former President George W. Bush and other leading Dallas Republicans, accounts for nearly $13 million of the money flowing to the presidential candidates and their super PACs. Much of it went to help Jeb Bush, who has leveraged his family and political connections in both Florida, where he was governor, and Texas, where his brother George held the same office. But some of the neighborhood’s biggest donors backed Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who has since dropped out of the race. The Dallas pipeline owner Kelcy Warren gave a super PAC supporting Mr. Perry’s committee $6 million, while another neighbor, Darwin Deason, pitched in $5 million.

The Moneyed Left

Many of the biggest donors to Mrs. Clinton’s super PAC have ties to the Democracy Alliance, a club that has strived to build a “progressive infrastructure” of left-leaning think tanks, activist groups and grassroots organizations. They include Mr. Soros, a founding member of the alliance; a fellow hedge fund investor, S. Donald Sussman; and Stephen M. Silberstein, a San Francisco-area programmer who made his fortune developing library computer systems. Mrs. Clinton is also backed by Amy Goldman Fowler, a philanthropist and heiress to a New York real estate fortune, and Patricia A. Stryker, one member of an influential group of Colorado progressive donors known as “the Gang of Four.”

The Top Early Donors in the Presidential Race

Wilks Family

$15.0 million

The Wilks family of Texas — brothers Farris and Dan and their spouses, Jo Ann and Staci — earned billions in the fracking boom.

Mercer Family

11.3 million

Robert Mercer, a Wall Street hedge fund magnate, and his daughter, Rebekah Mercer.

Toby Neugebauer

10.0 million

Co-founder of a private equity firm and son of Representative Randy Neugebauer, Republican of Texas.

Kelcy Warren

6.0 million

Dallas billionaire and chief executive of an energy company.

Ricketts Family

5.0 million

Joe Ricketts founded the online brokerage TD Ameritrade and is the patriarch of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs.

Deason Family

5.0 million

Darwin Deason is a Dallas-based billionaire who made his fortune by selling a data processing company to Xerox.

Diane Hendricks

5.0 million

Co-founder of a Wisconsin-based roofing company.

Norman Braman

5.0 million

Billionaire auto dealer in Florida, and a longtime patron of Marco Rubio.

Fernandez Family

3.1 million

Miguel "Mike" Fernandez built a series of health care services firms and now runs a private equity company.

Ronald M. Cameron

3.0 million

Chief executive of the agribusiness giant Mountaire.

Larry Ellison

3.0 million

Former chief executive of Oracle Corporation.

Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein

2.7 million

Owners of a Wisconsin packaging supply company, Mr. Uihlein also is descended from a founder of the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co.

Benjamin León

2.5 million

Health care executive and owner of Besilu stables.

Hunt Family

2.3 million

Heirs to the late oil billionaire H. L. Hunt.

Jeffrey S. Yass

2.3 million

Executive of the Susquehanna International Group, an investment company.

Richard D. and Nancy Kinder

2.0 million

Mr. Kinder is executive chairman of a Houston pipeline company; Mrs. Kinder is president of the Kinder Foundation

Rooney Family

2.0 million

Family of Francis Rooney, a longtime supporter of the Bush family and owner of Manhattan Construction Group.

Saban Family

2.0 million

The billionaire media investor Haim Saban and his wife, Cheryl, a philanthropist.

McNair Family

2.0 million

Family of Robert C. McNair, owner of the Houston Texans in the N.F.L.

Ansary Family

2.0 million

Hushang Ansary, a Houston businessman and former Iranian ambassador to the United States, and his wife, Shahla.

Rees-Jones Family

2.0 million

The oil billionaire Trevor D. Rees-Jones and his wife, Jan.

Cohen Family

2.0 million

The hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen and his wife, Alexandra.

Perlmutter Family

2.0 million

Isaac Perlmutter is chief executive of Marvel Entertainment.

Donald J. Trump

1.8 million

Presidential candidate, second-generation real estate developer and entertainer.

Len Blavatnik

1.8 million

A Russian-born American citizen who is the richest man in Britain, according to Forbes.

Perenchio Family

1.7 million

A. Jerrold Perenchio, former chairman of Univision, and his wife, Margaret.

Bernard Marcus

1.6 million

Co-founder of Home Depot.

William E. Oberndorf

1.5 million

Founding partner of SPO Partners, an investment firm.

Helen Schwab

1.5 million

Wife of Charles R. Schwab, the brokerage company founder.

Scott Banister

1.3 million

Technology entrepreneur and investor.

Buchwald Wright Family

1.1 million

Karen Buchwald Wright, chief executive of an Ohio natural gas-compressor manufacturing company, and her husband, Tom Rastin.

Thomas H. Lee

1.1 million

Private equity and leveraged-buyout pioneer.

Robert A. Day

1.1 million

Grandson of the founder of Superior Oil and a longtime Bush family fund-raiser.

George Macricostas

1.1 million

Nevada-based businessman and technology entrepreneur.

Gregory W. Wendt

1.1 million

Equity portfolio manager.

Julian Robertson

1.1 million

Founder of Tiger Management, a hedge fund.

Charles B. Johnson

1.1 million

Financier and part-owner of the San Francisco Giants baseball franchise.

Soros Family

1.1 million

Family of George Soros, billionaire philanthropist and hedge fund investor.

Gary Chouest

1.1 million

President of Louisiana shipping company.

James L. Robo

1.1 million

Chairman and chief executive of NextEra Energy.

Katzenberg Family

1.0 million

Family of Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation.

Thomas F. Stephenson

1.0 million

Silicon Valley venture capitalist.

Paul Fireman

1.0 million

Reebok founder and owner of a Nevada ranch.

Johnson Family

1.0 million

Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets, and his mother, Betty.

Al Hoffman Jr.

1.0 million

Retired Florida developer who served as ambassador to Portugal under President George W. Bush.

Brad Freeman

1.0 million

Chairman of a California private equity firm.

Abrams-McGrath Family

1.0 million

The film director J.J. Abrams and his wife, Katie McGrath.

Leslie H. Wexner

1.0 million

Chairman and chief executive of L Brands (formerly Limited).

Stephen M. Silberstein

1.0 million

Co-founder of a company that develops data systems for libraries.

Steven Spielberg

1.0 million

Film director and co-principal of DreamWorks.

Herbert M. Sandler

1.0 million

Founder, with his late wife, Marion, of Golden West Financial, the giant California savings and loan bought by the Wachovia Corporation in 2006.

Ronald O. Perelman

1.0 million

Billionaire businessman and art collector.

Raul Rodriguez

1.0 million

Founder of a home medical equipment company.

Louis Moore Bacon

1.0 million

Founder of the hedge fund Moore Capital Management.

S. Donald Sussman

1.0 million

Founder of Paloma Partners, a hedge fund in Greenwich, Conn.

Jay Schottenstein

1.0 million

President of the real estate company Schottenstein Management.

Christopher Cline

1.0 million

Billionaire coal mogul.

Bush Family

850,000

The Republican candidate Jeb Bush and family, including two ex-presidents, his father, George, and his brother George W.

David E. Shaw

800,000

Computer scientist and hedge fund founder.

Willis J. Johnson

800,000

Founder of Copart, a vehicle auction website.

Douglas L. Foshee

750,000

Chairman and chief executive of Sallyport Investments; former chief executive of El Paso Corp.

Buchan Family

750,000

Duke Buchan III, founder of the hedge fund Hunter Global Investors, and his wife, Hannah.

Patricia A. Stryker

750,000

Heir to medical supply company fortune.

Daniel Gilbert

750,000

Founder of Quicken Loans.

Duchossois Family

700,000

The horse racing magnate Richard L. Duchossois and his children.

Kvamme Family

700,000

Venture capital executives.

Lawrence F. DeGeorge

600,000

Financial advisory executive.

Troutt Family

550,000

Kenny A. Troutt, founder of a long-distance phone company, and his wife, Lisa.

Muneer Satter

550,000

Chicago investor and former Goldman Sachs executive.

Stern Family

550,000

Marc Stern is chairman of the TCW Group, a Los Angeles-based asset management firm.

Simons Family

550,000

Family of James H. Simons, founder of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies.

Fayez Sarofim

550,000

Founder of Houston investment firm.

Morton S. Bouchard

550,000

President and chief executive of an oil barge company.

Jackson Family

550,000

Owners of Jackson Healthcare LLC.

Herschend Family

500,000

Family that owns Herschend Family Entertainment, a theme park operator.

Peter and Julianna Holt

500,000

Principal owners of the N.B.A.'s San Antonio Spurs.

Leone Family

500,000

Doug Leone is partner in the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital.

Roberto Mignone

500,000

Founder of Bridger Management, a hedge fund.

Daniel Loeb

500,000

Hedge fund manager and activist investor.

John L. Nau

500,000

Chief executive of Silver Eagle Distributors.

S. Javaid Anwar

500,000

Pakistan-born founder of a West Texas energy company.

Howard E. Cox Jr.

500,000

Partner at Greylock, a venture capital firm.

Philip H. Geier Jr.

500,000

Former chairman and chief executive at the Interpublic Group of Companies.

Joseph Plumeri

500,000

Former chief executive of the insurance broker Willis Group Holdings.

Rex A. Sinquefield

500,000

An early pioneer of index funds, now retired and active in Missouri politics.

James A. Rubright

500,000

Retired chairman and chief executive of Rock-Tenn Company, a manufacturer of consumer packaging.

John P. McConnell

500,000

Chairman and chief executive of a steel company.

Micky Arison

500,000

Chairman of the cruise operator Carnival Corporation and owner of pro basketball's Miami Heat.

Bruce S. Sherman

500,000

Co-founder of Private Capital Management.

Ted E. Schlein

500,000

Senior partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Peter Karmanos

500,000

Co-founder of Compuware.

Robert D. Walter

500,000

Founder of Cardinal Health.

Chen Shu Te

500,000

A retiree living in Hong Kong -- but public records reveal little else about him.

The Goldman Family

450,000

John D. Goldman, a San Francisco insurance executive, is a son of the late philanthropist Richard N. Goldman.

Fox Family

450,000

Founders of Harbour Group, a St. Louis-based investment firm, and longtime Bush family allies.

R. William Becker

450,000

Owner of Peace River Citrus Products.

Manoj Bhargava

400,000

Founder of 5-hour Energy drinks.

Ezratti Family

400,000

Family of Itzhak Ezratti, president of G.L. Homes of Florida.

Galvin Family

350,000

Heirs to the Motorola fortune.

Lincoln Chafee

350,000

Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Jenkins Family

350,000

Family behind the grocery retailing chain Publix Super Markets.

Buckley Family

350,000

Walter W. Buckley, founder of a Bethlehem, Pa., investment management firm, and his wife, Marjorie.

William C. Edwards

350,000

Venture capital executive.

Kojaian Family

300,000

Family behind Kojaian Management Corp., a real estate investment firm based in Michigan.

Stephen M. Lessing

300,000

Partner for Aqueduct Capital Group and former George W. Bush fund-raiser.

Feingold Family

300,000

Owners of a dental benefits company.

Fanjul Family

300,000

Florida sugar barons, led by four brothers born in Cuba.

Stanley F. Druckenmiller

300,000

Investor and hedge fund manager.

John W. Childs

300,000

Florida-based founder of a Massachusetts-based private equity firm.

Lee Roy Mitchell

300,000

Chairman of Cinemark, a chain of movie theaters.

Siegel Family

300,000

Media investors.

Kenneth C. Griffin

300,000

Hedge fund manager ranked as the richest man in Illinois.

Kohler Family

300,000

Heirs to Kohler manufacturing fortune.

John C. Cushman III

300,000

Chairman of Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate firm.

Manuel Moroun

300,000

Detroit businessman and owner of the Ambassador International Bridge, the only privately-owned border crossing between the U.S. and Canada.

Victor F. Ganzi

300,000

President and chairman of the board of the P.G.A. Tour.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

300,000

Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

C. Boyden Gray

300,000

Washington lawyer and conservative activist.

Linda McMahon

300,000

Former professional wrestling executive, who spent close to $100 million on two failed Senate bids in Connecticut.

Thomas Patrick

300,000

Chairman of asset management firm.

Byron Trott

250,000

Former Goldman Sachs banker.

Tichenor Family

250,000

Children of the late McHenry Tichenor Sr., a media mogul and pioneer of Spanish-language radio.

David B. Miller

250,000

Co-founder of a private equity firm that focuses on the oil and gas industry.

G. Brint Ryan

250,000

Chief executive of tax services firm.

Abessinio Family

250,000

Owners of Roch Capital, a Pennsylvania-based investment firm.

Thomas F. Petway III

250,000

Insurance executive.

Alexander Navab

250,000

Executive at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the New York-based private equity firm.

James C. Flores

250,000

Oil executive.

Brandon T. Steele

250,000

Financial services executive.

Marc Nathanson

250,000

Founder of Falcon Cable.

James Pugh

250,000

Chairman and chief executive of Epoch Residential, a luxury construction company.

Scott T. Ford

250,000

Arkansas commodity executive.

Thomas L. Corr

250,000

Head of a petroleum distributor.

John M. Angelo

250,000

Co-founded an investment firm.

Amy P. Goldman

250,000

The daughter of the late Sol Goldman, a wealthy New York real estate investor, Ms. Goldman has written three books about growing heirloom fruits and vegetables.

Robert Tuttle

250,000

Beverly Hills car dealer.

Jeffery Hildebrand

250,000

Founder of oil and natural gas exploration and production company.

John A. Gunn

250,000

Chairman emeritus of Dodge & Cox.

Jonathon Jacobson

250,000

Hedge fund founder.

Kenneth M. Garschina

250,000

Founder of a New York hedge fund and longtime backer of Rand Paul.

Glenn Creamer

250,000

Private equity investor.

Roger C. Altman

250,000

Investment banker who served as deputy secretary of Treasury during the Clinton administration.

Robert J. Bishop

250,000

Hedge fund founder.

Kenneth G. Langone

250,000

A founder of Home Depot and longtime supporter of Chris Christie.

David Tepper

250,000

One of the highest-earning hedge fund founders in the country, specializing in distressed assets.

Tracy W. Krohn

250,000

Auto racing enthusiast and founder of W&T Offshore, and independent oil and natural gas company.

Richard T. Farmer

250,000

Founder of Cintas Corp.

Barrett A. Toan

250,000

Former chief executive of a mail-order pharmacy company.

Dicke Family

250,000

Owners of Crown Equipment Corp.

Roger Penske

250,000

Founder and chairman of Penske Corp.

McMahon Family

250,000

Owners of Miller & Long Real Estate in Bethesda, Md.

Fred Cunningham II

250,000

Investor.

George M. Rapier

250,000

Chairman and chief executive of WellMed Medical Management.

Wolfe Family

250,000

Former owners of The Columbus Dispatch.

Art E. Favre

250,000

Founder of Performance Contractors.

The Lipsky Family

250,000

New Jersey hospital owners.

Robert E. Murray

250,000

Republican activist and chief executive of an Ohio coal mining company.

Ben Nash

250,000

Co-founder of PCS Wireless.



Sources: F.E.C. and I.R.S. filings; voter registrations; property assessment and deed records; corporate filings.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/us...ml#donors-list

Well, any Republican who hasn't already read the writing on the wall and make a choice to support a candidate who is not beholding to any of this money, needs to do so, and quickly.

These donors’ fortunes reflect the shifting composition of the country’s economic elite. Relatively few work in the traditional ranks of corporate America, or hail from dynasties of inherited wealth. Most built their own businesses, parlaying talent and an appetite for risk into huge wealth: They founded hedge funds in New York, bought up undervalued oil leases in Texas, made blockbusters in Hollywood. More than a dozen of the elite donors were born outside the United States, immigrating from countries like Cuba, the old Soviet Union, Pakistan, India and Israel.

But regardless of industry, the families investing the most in presidential politics overwhelmingly lean right, contributing tens of millions of dollars to support Republican candidates who have pledged to pare regulations; cut taxes on income, capital gains and inheritances; and shrink entitlement programs. While such measures would help protect their own wealth, the donors describe their embrace of them more broadly, as the surest means of promoting economic growth and preserving a system that would allow others to prosper, too.

Perhaps they don't want the country that gave them all of these wonderful opportunities to turn into the countries that they left. Too bad that they support illegal immigration as a source for cheap labor.

GOP IMMIGRATION PLAN DEVISED BY COMMUNIST PARTY