The leading super PAC for Senate Republicans, the Senate Leadership Fund, raised an average of more than $1 million every day in the third quarter, bringing in $111 million, a huge infusion of funds that is already being used to pummel Democratic candidates on the airwaves in more than a half-dozen key Senate races.
The financial windfall, shared first with The New York Times, nearly doubled the total amount of money previously raised by the group during this midterm cycle, which began last year. The super PAC, which is closely aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, will report on its next Federal Election Commission filing, which is due Saturday, that it has raised $221.4 million to date in the 2022 cycle.
“Our donors are fired up about slamming the brakes on Joe Biden’s disastrous left-wing agenda,” Steven Law, the former chief of staff to Mr. McConnell who runs the super PAC, said in a statement. “We are hammering Democrats on inflation, gas prices, taxes and crime.”
In Senate battleground states, the group’s ads have been hard to avoid.
Federal records show the super PAC has already spent $148 million, as of Wednesday, to influence Senate races in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Ohio.
The group canceled an ad reservation in Arizona, where the Republican Blake Masters is challenging Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, but Axios reported on Wednesday that the group was in discussions with Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist, about splitting the cost of returning to the airwaves there.
The Senate Leadership Fund has spent roughly double the amount as the leading Democratic super PAC devoted to Senate races, known as the Senate Majority PAC, but Democratic candidates in almost every key contest have out-raised Republican candidates.
The Republican super PAC declined to discuss who its biggest donors were in recent months, other than to say it received a $20 million transfer from an affiliated nonprofit group, One Nation, which does not disclose its contributors.
Through June, the super PAC’s two biggest disclosed contributors had been two Wall Street chief executives: Stephen A. Schwarzman of Blackstone and Kenneth Griffin of Citadel. Each had given $10 million.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
