Nearly all of the contenders for president are encouraging their deep-pocketed donors to give not just to their campaigns, but to groups known as super PACs as well.
Unlike campaigns, these outside groups aren’t limited in how much money they can accept from individual donors. While they can’t directly take orders from the candidates they’re spending money to help elect, they still account for about $2 of every $3 raised so far in the 2016 race for president.
Many super PACs must file their first fundraising reports with federal regulators by midnight Friday. The super PAC filings will detail how money was raised and spent from January to the end of June and include the names of donors.
Two weeks ago, many of the candidates filed their first campaign fundraising reports. Together, the reports from the super PACs and the candidates will produce the first major accounting of who is paying for the campaign for president.
Here is a guide to what’s already known about the presidential super PACs, based on information provided by the groups and their official filings with the Federal Election Commission.
A super PAC aiming to help Texas Sen. Ted Cruz win the Republican presidential nomination raised from a single donor nearly as much as the candidate’s formal campaign raised in three months. A $10 million donation from Toby Neugebauer is the largest contribution so far to any of the candidate-specific super PACs.
Neugebauer is an energy investor in Texas and the son of GOP Rep. Randy Neugebauer. The money went to Keep the Promise II, one of several similarly named super PACs all working to help elect Cruz.
The Wilks family in Texas pooled together for a $15 million gift to a second pro-Cruz super PAC. Brothers Farris and Dan Wilks made billionaire lists by getting into the booming shale gas industry.
TD Ameritrade’s billionaire founder Joe Ricketts, his wife, Marlene, and their son Todd together gave just over $5 million to a super PAC supporting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s Republican presidential ambitions. The Ricketts family owns the Chicago Cubs. Diane Hendricks, the billionaire executive of a wholesale roofing company headquartered in Wisconsin, also wrote a $5 million check.
Those donors accounted for half of the money raised by the pro-Walker super PAC, called Unintimidated. Richard Uihlein and his wife, Elizabeth, gave $2.5 million. In recent years, Uihlein moved his packaging supply company, Uline, entirely out of Illinois and into Wisconsin because of tax incentives.
Million-dollar donors also featured prominently in the super PAC supporting Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential bid. Miami-based automobile dealer Norman Braman gave $5 million; Besilu Stables LLC, owned by Miami health care executive Benjamin Leon, gave $2.5 million. In total, the group Conservative Solutions pulled in about $16 million, including a $3 million gift from Oracle founder Larry Ellison.
A lone local donor also is propping up the super PAC supporting former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Of the $3.6 million raised by Pursuing America’s Greatness, 83 percent came from Ronald Cameron, chief executive of Arkansas-based Mountaire Corp., one of the country’s largest poultry companies.
