A candidate’s biggest donors say a lot about who the candidate is and where his or her campaign stands. The Daily Beast looks at the top five contributors for the 2012 race as of December for each of the remaining Republican candidates...
Does the candidate profit most from Wall Street or from hometown businesses? Are there behind-the-scenes connections between the candidates and their big-dollar donors? We use data from the Center for Responsive Politics, which analyzes campaign-finance data from the Federal Election Commission to find out. The contributors here either sponsor political action committees or are an individual donor’s employer. We also include the top five donors to Herman Cain—who earlier this month dropped out of the race but will still be an option for Iowa caucusgoers—and the top donors for Barack Obama, the ultimate target of GOP candidates.
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Barron Collier: $8,000
Wells Fargo: $7,800
Houston Texans: $7,400
Cinco Natural Gas: $5,200
Third Security: $5,000
On the football field the Houston Texans have been more successful than the presidential candidate the franchise has backed. Houston is headed for the NFL playoffs, but Cain suspended his presidential campaign earlier this month after a string of sexual-harassment accusations.
Sue Ogrocki / AP Photo
Fertitta Entertainment: $29,500
Station Casinos: $29,000
Ultimate Fighting Championship: $29,000
Crow Holdings: $25,000
Fresenius Medical Care: $17,400
The former Utah governor and biggest underdog in the Iowa caucuses has received tens of thousands of dollars from the ultimate source of underdog fighters: Ultimate Fighting Championship, the cage-fighting league based in Nevada, Utah’s neighbor to the west. Fertitta Entertainment, Huntsman’s biggest donor, is owned by Frank Fertitta III, who also owns UFC.
Brett Flashnick / AP Photo
Hubbard Broadcasting: $10,000
Empire Office, Inc.: $10,000
College Loan Corp.: $10,000
Captive-Aire, Inc.: $10,000
Slumberland, Inc.: $10,000
Michele Bachmann’s conservative Christian values have hit a chord with Slumberland, a mattress-and-furniture chain based in the Twin Cities suburb of Little Canada. Those values extend all the way up to Slumberland CEO Kenneth Larson, who is on the board of directors of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
Charles Dharapak / AP Photo
Blue Cross/Blue Shield: $18,000
Universal Health Services: $17,250
Kimber Manufacturing: $12,300
El Dorado Holdings: $10,000
Achristavest: $10,000
Rick Santorum has received tens of thousands of dollars from donors in the health industry but the big-time contributor with the most unique name is Achristavest Properties, a company that develops waterfront properties in Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania, as well as in New Jersey and Maryland. In October Santorum named Achristavest Chairman Eustace Mita his campaign’s national finance chairman.
Joe Burbank, Orlando Sentinel / MCT / Getty Images
Rock-Tenn Co.: $27,500
POET LLC: $20,000
First Fiscal Fund: $15,000
Pull-A-Part, Inc.: $15,000
Amway/Alticor, Inc.: $10,000
Why is cosmetics giant Amway one of Newt Gingrich’s biggest contributors? It could have to do with the $283 million tax break then–House speaker Gingrich slipped into the 1997 budget bill. Gingrich has also defended subsidies for the ethanol industry, so it stands to reason that the world’s largest ethanol producer, POET, is also among his top contributors.
David Goldman / AP Photo
Ryan, LLC: $186,800
Murray Energy: $105,504
USAA: $69,500
Contran Corp.: $50,000
Ernst & Young: $47,800
You might think Contran Corp., owned by Harold Simmons, pioneer of the leveraged buyout, would be firmly in the corner of Mitt Romney, cofounder of the private-equity firm Bain Capital. Nope. Contran has put its eggs into Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s basket. Part of the reason might be that Perry backed and ultimately succeeded in allowing Simmons to build a radioactive waste site in Texas, with potential profits in the hundreds of millions for Simmons, a Dallas billionaire.
Charlie Neibergall / AP Photo
U.S. Army personnel: $24,503
U.S. Air Force personnel: $23,335
U.S. Navy personnel: $17,432
Mason Capital Management: $14,000
Microsoft Corp.: $13,398
At $500,000 the biggest donor to Ron Paul’s campaign is...Ron Paul. Other than committees bearing Paul’s name, the congressman from Texas has received more than $65,000 from members of the U.S. armed forces, which could be because Paul has said as president he would pull U.S. forces out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Goldman Sachs: $367,200
Credit Suisse Group: $203,750
Morgan Stanley: $199,800
HIG Capital: $186,500
Barclays: $157,750
It’s little wonder that Mitt Romney, the cofounder of private-equity firm Bain Capital, has banked more than $1.1 million from the financial-services industry for his presidential run. Romney still has strong ties to Wall Street, and each year his own bank account benefits to the tune of millions of dollars, per his retirement agreement with Bain.
Wilfredo Lee / AP Photo
Microsoft Corp.: $171,573
Comcast Corp.: $113,800
University of California: $107,501
Harvard University: $99,975
Google Inc.: $95,066
Barack Obama’s cerebral reputation is reflected in his big-dollar donations from people linked to world-class American universities and the tech industry. It’s no wonder that Comcast employees have been especially generous to the president’s reelection fund—Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and Obama are so close that Roberts received the president at his Martha’s Vineyard home in August.
Mandel Ngan, AFP / Getty Images
