Megadonor money floods Pa. Senate race

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Megadonor money is flooding the Pennsylvania Senate race between three-term incumbent Democrat Bob Casey and Republican challenger David McCormick. In fact, according to quarterly filings by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), super PACs are vastly outspending the candidates’ own campaigns.

McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO, has raised and spent about half as much as his opponent, but an influx of outside dollars has pushed him ahead of Casey in spending. The reports come as recent polling shows the race has tightened since its early days, with McCormick gaining ground on Casey.

The McCormick campaign’s own $22.2 million in spending has been cushioned by over $108 million from various outside groups, $45.3 million of which is from a super PAC called Keystone Renewal. Super political action committees, or super PACs,  may receive unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor unions and other PACs but must spend it independently of the candidates they support.

Instead of supporting multiple candidates, Keystone is solely focused on flipping this one seat — and has amassed million-dollar donations from some of the wealthiest individuals in the world, including Jeffrey Yass, the richest man in Pennsylvania.

Casey, for his part, has spent $45 million this election cycle. Though he did not benefit from a single-candidate super PAC, he did see $67 million spent on his behalf by outside groups. About $50 million of that comes from leadership PACs (PACs controlled by party leaders), which also receive large contributions from wealthy megadonors, such as James Simons, a former hedge fund manager who donated more than $15 million to Democratic organizations this year before he died in May. The primary difference is that Simons’ contributions went into a pot of money doled out to Senate campaigns across the country.

All in all, over $173 million in outside expenditures has been poured into this race, according to OpenSecrets, dwarfing both candidates’ combined spending of $68 million. With over $240 million spent in total, the race is among the most expensive in the nation.

You might not guess that from the candidate’s fundraising numbers this quarter: $16 million for Casey and $7.6 million for McCormick.

The numbers aren’t completely surprising, according to OpenSecrets researcher Andrew Mayersohn. He says that before the pivotal Citizens United case of 2010, which enabled unlimited outside spending in elections, PACs were a relatively small player in most of the campaign finance landscape. These days, though, those groups — and the megadonors who often power them — have a disproportionate presence in races.

“Every cycle, we’re seeing the top Senate races get into the nine figures of outside spending,” Mayersohn said. “It means, in all likelihood, a larger reliance on things like attack ads, because that’s a specialty of outside groups.”

While outside groups and candidate’s campaign committees alike cash out on television and internet ads, physical mailers, billboards and more, campaign committees have a broader range of expenditures to cover. They pay for overhead costs, staff compensation, travel, campaign events and more.

The Players

Koch Industries, via their hybrid PAC Americans for Prosperity Action, have spent significantly in support of McCormick — $13 million in the most recent quarter. But Keystone Renewal remains the largest spender on McCormick’s behalf and in the race at large; the super PAC reported spending $30 million in the last quarter alone.

The majority of Keystone’s $49 million in funds come from only 70 individuals or families — mostly billionaires, including some of the wealthiest individuals in the world. Only two, including Yass, are from Pennsylvania. The group’s small pool of contributors and singular focus on electing McCormick, rather than a wider slate of Republican candidates, provides a direct view into which megadonors have a particular interest in flipping this seat red.

Kenneth Griffin, founder of the hedge fund Citadel LLC, gave the PAC the largest boost of all in its first month with a $10 million contribution. He donated another $5 million this quarter. Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman donated $1 million this quarter following a gift of $500,000 last year. Thomas Peterffy, the founder and CEO of the trading firm Interactive Brokers, gave $2 million this quarter after an initial $800,000. Yass gave an initial $1 million shortly after the PAC launched and added another $250,000 this quarter.

These four Keystone contributors rank between numbers 28 and 38 on Bloomberg’s global Billionaires Index.

Many donors who are closely connected with former President Donald Trump also cashed in for McCormick, who has said that he sees the two campaigns as “very aligned” in terms of reaching voters. “I think he’s going to help me in that respect and I think I can help him,” he told WHYY News at a campaign stop in Philadelphia in April.

Another first-quarter $1 million dollar investor is billionaire Howard Lutnick, who Trump appointed in August as co-chair of a transition team preparing for the former president’s potential return to office. Lutnick recently warned prospective Trump appointees that they must prove absolute “loyalty” to the former president.

Valor Equity Partners founder and former Tesla board member Antonio Gracias also joined the GOP donors this quarter with $2 million in donations. Gracias is a close friend and confidant to Elon Musk, and also contributes to Musk’s pro-Trump super PAC.

Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and other members of her family collectively gave $500,000 in May of this year, but had no additional donations listed this quarter. DeVos had frequently called for deep cuts to federal education funding and is a major supporter of policies that direct public funds to private schools

Billionaire couple Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, founders of the shipping company Uline and among the top financial contributors to the Trump campaign in the nation, have given a total of $1.5 million to Keystone. Richard Uihlein is the primary contributor to the pro-Trump group Restoration PAC, which recently made headlines for a controversial pro-Trump TV ad using out-of-context footage of Philadelphia native Kimberly Burrell speaking emotionally about economic hardship as part of a broader conversation about the gun violence that claimed her son’s life.

On Casey’s side, most of the outside PAC spending has come from leadership super PAC WinSenate, which spent $39 million on the candidate. WinSenate’s funding comes directly from Senate Majority PAC (SMP) which is aligned with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

SMP fundraises for Democratic Senatorial candidates across the country, providing less of a direct look at which wealthy contributors are eyeing Casey in particular — but there are certainly plenty of megadonors among their ranks. In addition to Simons, for example, Stephen Mandel, founder and manager of Lone Pine Capital,also a hedge fund, chipped in $6 million to SMP before this quarter. Newsweb Chairman Fred Eychaner donated $8 million and Reed Hastings, chairman of the Board of Directors at Netflix, gave $2 million.

SMP also received over $15.7 million from Majority Forward in 2023. That group is considered a “dark money” nonprofit — its 501(c)(4) status allows the organization to spend to influence elections without disclosing its donors.

McCormick saw a similar sum spent on his behalf by a party-controlled, multi-candidate super PAC. The Senate Leadership Fund, aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has doled out $37 million for McCormick throughout the course of the race. Both SMP and the Senate Leadership Fund get the lion’s share of their funds from donations larger than $200, though SMP brings in some small-dollar gifts. The Democratic super PAC reported that donations under $200 made up about 10% of their $55 million in fundraising between January and July 2024, while Senate Leadership Fund reported virtually none in their $65 million haul over the same time period.

Casey has also received support from interest groups that spent on his behalf. Pro-gun regulation groups such as Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund spent more than $1 million and Giffords PAC spent nearly $500,000. Labor groups also showed their support for Casey.  The National Nurses United for Patient Protection spent nearly $500,000 and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) spent $400,000.

The overall effect of the massive outside spending — which Pennsylvanians have witnessed firsthand — is an abundance in ads produced by both sides, many of which are attacking each other.

“The vast majority of the Casey versus McCormick race has been negative,” says Heather LaMarre, who studies political communications and teaching at Temple University. And “my analysis of political campaign ads in general, especially negative ads, is that it’s a net negative for our democracy and it’s neutral at best for a campaign or candidate and probably a net negative.”