Welcome to Pay Dirt—exclusive reporting and research from The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay on corruption, campaign finance, and influence-peddling in the nation’s capital. For Beast Inside members only.
Big names in corporate America backed incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly in November’s Senate contest in Indiana. But Donnelly lost to Sen. Mike Braun, and now the same corporations are lining up to do penance in the form of post-election contributions to the winner.
Braun’s campaign filed its year-end report with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday, and disclosed $130,000 in contributions from 41 trade associations and corporate political action committees. Most of the money was earmarked to retire the sizable debts that Braun racked up during the 2018 cycle.
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Just three of those donors had contributed to Braun’s campaign before Election Day, ponying up less than $10,000 combined. In contrast, 28 of them had donated more than $150,000 to Donnelly’s re-election bid.
After Braun prevailed, though, those same corporate donors turned around and gave post-election cash infusions to Braun’s political coffers. Big-name Donnelly donors that graced Braun only after his victory include Verizon, ExxonMobil, General Electric, Comcast, AT&T, and the American Bankers Association.
It’s standard for special interests to back political winners, of course. But the sheer number of corporate Donnelly donors who, immediately upon his defeat, began steering money to the victor is remarkable even by the standards of contemporary influence-peddling.
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