“Guardian angels” watching over campaigns

There are many ways major political donors can flex their financial influence in an election. In this cycle, a handful of powerful donors have chosen to contribute to “guardian angel” political action committees.'''Guardian angel super PACs are a breed of committees that receive 40 to 100 percent of their funds from a single wealthy individual.

These super PACs aren’t new to campaign finance, said Dr. Steven Billet, the director of the legislative affairs program at George Washington University. For example, during Newt Gingrich’s 2012 bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate and powerful conservative donor, spent tens of millions of dollars on Gingrich’s campaign through these super PACs, Billet said. The Center for Responsive Politics identified 19 donors who have substantially funded 29 guardian angel super PACs during this election cycle. Most are conservative donors, and some have financed super PACs supporting or opposing a single candidate’s campaign. Three of the donors, Adelson, Thomas Steyer and Richard Uihlein, are responsible for $81 million, over 80 percent, of the contributions. Collectively, the 19 donors gave $101 million to committees that raised $161 million. Several of these guardian angels are well-known names in the world of large political donors: Steyer, Adelson, Uihlein, Michael Bloomberg, Robert Mercer and George Soros.Others are lesser known, but so far have spent considerable money this cycle, like Michael Porter, William Scully, Mark Headley, Ron Gula and Alwal Moore.'''

These donations are far more powerful than regular campaign contributions to a candidate, Billet said. “If you’re pumping half a million or a million into a campaign, it’s a whole new level of leverage,” Billet said. “If Newt had won, anytime Sheldon comes to Washington, he gets to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom.” The top spender to a single committee is Steyer, a liberal hedge fund manager, who gave $29.2 million to NextGen Climate Action, an environmental advocacy committee. The super PAC so far raised $30.2 million. Adelson isn’t far behind, giving $25 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, nearly half of the super PAC’s funds. The committee was formed to maintain the Republican majority in the Senate. Uihlein, a conservative businessman, is the primary donor for 10 different conservative committees, over a third of the super PACs listed. In total, he donated $27 million to a variety of outside groups, three of which are single candidate super PACs in Wisconsin and Missouri.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/09/guardian-angels-super-pac/