Contributing to political candidates

You probably have financially supported political candidates over the years. What was the most you donated? $100, $1,000, $10,000? Some people donated lots more. For example, 12 very wealthy people donated in the millions and billions. Issue One, a liberal political organization, looked at the contributions made by these 12 donors between January 2009 and December 2020 and found that the 12 contributed $3.4 billion to federal candidates and political groups.

Two of these contributors - Michael Bloomberg,  the former mayor of New York City, and Tom Steyer, a former hedge fund manager from California - put up a total of $2.053 billion for their presidential campaigns, $1.4 billion from Bloomberg and $653 million from Steyer. Sheldon Adelson, the casino money man, spent in the nine digits ($523,000,000); the rest spent in the eight digits, the smallest contribution being $63,000,000.

The money went to federal candidates and political party committees like the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee, as well as to super PACs, which, unlike candidates and political parties, are legally allowed to accept contributions of unlimited amounts. This amounts to 7.5% of the $45 billion that all federal candidates and political groups raised between January 2009 and December 2020. Put another way, this means that 12 megadonors and their spouses — a total of 19 individuals — accounted for about $1 of every $13 in federal politics between January 2009 and December 2020.