This post is written strictly to provide information about the finances of the two Democratic candidates. It includes a list of the major donors to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, as well as information regarding political action committees that support their candidacies. Open Secrets is my primary source for this information but links to news articles regarding certain donors to the political action committees cited below have been added for context.
Let’s begin.
Open Secrets — Summary Data re: Clinton Fundraising
Open Secrets — Summary Data re: Bernie Sanders Fundraising
A brief explanation. The above reflects only money raised and spent by the campaigns and outside supporting groups . It does not include information regarding all expenditures by PACs on behalf of either candidate, though it does show contributions made by all PACs to the campaign. The “Other” category is not explained on the summary page.
As you can see, Clinton's campaign and outside groups supporting her candidacy spent $147.7 million to the $122.7 million by Sanders campaign and outside groups who supported him. However, for the 2016 election cycle, Clinton raised a combined total of $222,579,130 compared to Sander’s combined total of $139,856,287.
Now let’s examine the largest donors to both candidates.
Cliton’s Top Contributors
And now Sanders Top Contributors
The following disclaimer accompanies these lists:
This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2016 cycle. The money came from the organizations' PACs; their individual members, employees or owners; and those individuals' immediate families. At the federal level, the organizations themselves did not donate, as they are prohibited by law from doing so. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.
As you can see, there is a great disparity between the amounts Clinton’s top individual donors have given to those given by Sander’s top donors. Clinton’s top donors all exceed $1 million. None of Sanders’ indvidual donors gave anywhere close to that much.
Obviously, many of the names of these contributors are well known Sanders and Clinton supporters (George Soros and Priorities USA Action PAC, e.g., for Clinton), but others less so. Some are obviously unions that have endorsed one candidate or the other. Some of the names however are likely as unfamiliar to you as they were to me. Let’s look at two of the names: Alphabet Inc., Bernie’s top contributor at $254, 814 and Clinton’s second largest contributor LIUNA Building America, at $4 million.
First, let’s look at Alphabet Inc.
Wikipedia describes as an American multinational conglomerate created in 2015 as the parent company of Google and several other companies previously owned by Google. So, several questions come to mind. One, is Google backing Sanders? Two, how can Google contribute to Sanders since, as we shall see later, no Sanders supporting PACs are known to have taken money from Google?
The answer to the first question is that Google has not made any direct payments to either candidate, and indeed Alphabet Inc./ Google is also a contributor to Hillary Clinton.
The New York Times noted in September that technology professionals from all over America had volunteered to support Sanders and his internet-focused campaign. And tech employees are donating both their their time and money. [...]
Tech appears to have an affinity for Clinton, too, though she is getting the bulk of her individual contributions from elsewhere. Alphabet also appears as a top contributor to the former first lady's presidential campaign, but it falls farther down the list.ime and money.
The explanation for why Google is listed as a contributor to both campaigns (and how it evaded the $2,700 limit on individual donations) is easily explained by the methodology that Open Secrets used to compile these lists.
METHODOLOGY
The figures profiled here include money from two sources: These contributors were either the sponsors of a PAC that gave to the politician, or they were listed as an individual donor's employer. Donors who give more than $200 to any federal candidate, PAC or party committee must list their occupation and employer. Based on that information, the donor is given an economic code. These totals are conservative, as not all of the individual contributions have yet been classified by the Center. [...]
Although individual contributions are generally categorized based on the donor's occupation/employer, in some cases individuals may be classified instead as ideological donors. A contribution to a candidate may be given an ideological code, rather than an economic code, if the contributor gives to an ideological political action committee AND the candidate has received money from PACs representing that same ideological interest.
So, no Google is not supporting Hillary or Bernie. However, individual employees of Google are donating to both campaigns. It is possible that Google, the company, contributed to a SuperPac that supports one or other of these two canddidates, but I could find no evidence of that. Open secrets shows that Google PAC has contributed $629,750 to candidates for federal office, with a 52% to 48% split favoring Republicans. You can find a list of to whom Google PAC contributed here.
Now for LIUNA, Clinton’s second largest contributor at $4,000,000.
LIUNA stands for Laborer’s International Union of North America. It is described on its websites About page as:
LIUNA—the Laborers’ International Union of North America—is the most progressive, aggressive and fastest-growing union of construction workers, and one of the most diverse and effective unions representing public service employees.
LIUNA members are on the forefront of the construction industry – a sector that is a powerhouse of 12 million workers producing 5 percent of our countries’ economic output.
According to Wikipedia it has members in both the US and Canada. It's a union that represents workers in the construction industry. It says it is progressive, and its endorsed Clinton for President.
Fine and dandy. Still $4 million is a lot for anyone to contribute to this early in the cycle. Here’s some further information you should know about LIUNA that may explain its endorsement and the size of its contributions to Clinton. First, LIUNA represents construction workers in the energy industry, among others.
LIUNA members assist in the construction and maintenance of power plants and substations, digging trenches for lines and backfilling, road repair after line installation, and supporting infrastructure such as oil and gas pipelines. Members also have skills in new technologies and are trained installers of solar panels, wind turbines, and green roofs, as well as building retrofit specialists and energy auditors.
Reshaping America’s Energy Future with Jobs for the 21st Century
The U.S. will continue to be dependent on a variety of energy resources, including coal, oil, natural gas, wind, solar and nuclear power.
Second, LIUNA supported the Keystone XXL pipeline and lobbied hard for it’s approval. It partnered with the Koch brothers and their affilialtes to get approval of the Keystone pipeline. And LIUNA threatened retaliation against Democrats in Congress who opposed the Keystone pipeline. Candidate Clinton initially favored leaned toward approval of the Keystone pipeline while she was Secretary of Sate, and even after she became a candidate she refused to say she was opposed to it, until finally after several statements that did not express a definitive opinion on the Keystone pipeline, she finally came out against it in September of 2015.
Now on to the question of SuperPacs that support each candidate.
Clinton SuperPacs
Hillary Clinton is primarily supported by three Super Pacs: Priorities USA Action, which supported President Obama in 2012 and now supports Clinton, Correct the Record, which describes itself as “a strategic research and rapid response team designed to defend Hillary Clinton from baseless attacks,” and Ready PAC (a hybrid super PAC, formerly known as Ready for Hillary until she declared her candidacy). Of the three, Priorities USA has received the largest amount of funds, with donations in excess of $55,560,457 as of February 29, 2016. Here are screenshots of its largest donors, those who gave more than $1 million:
Some of these names will be familiar to you (the ubiquitous Mr. Soros, and Steven Spielberg), but others listed here were not known to me. Here is a brief summary of a few of the more prominent among them.
The Pritzker Family
J.B. Pritzker and his wife have contributed a total of $2.8 million to outside groups backing Clinton making them one of the top five donors to her candidacy. His sister, Penny Pritzker is Obama’s Commerce Secretary, and has been heavily involved in negotiations regarding trade agreements, including the TPP. The family fortune was created largely by Jay Pritzker, father to J.B. and Penny, and was founded upon real estate investments, with the Hyatt Hotel Chain as its crown jewel. After the family patriarch died, the heirs diversified their holdings into a variety of businesses. J.B. has holdings in the high tech industry as well as a number of other businesses. His net worth is calculated at $3.3 Billion.
James Simon
Simon is a wealthy hedge fund manager with a net worth of over $15 Billion.
Donald Sussman
Sussman is another wealthy hedge fund manager who runs Paloma Partners. Some have called into question his investments in real estate in Maine.
Herbert Sandler
Sandler and his wife Marion, while in charge of World Savings Bank in the 80’s, came up with the creative home loan called the option ARM, a back-loaded mortgage that made the initial payments low, encouraging speculation in the residential market. They sold their interest in World Savings tom Wachovia form $2.3 Billion in 2003, thus getting out before the the home mortgage bubble burst in 2008, the major cause of the Great Recession.
Many former Clinton operatives and associates work for one or another of these PACs. Harold Ickes and James Carville have worked for Ready PAC. At Priorities USA, Paul Begala is a senior advisor. David Brock of Media matters is associated with Correct the Record.
Hilary SuperPac Spending
Priorities USA has spent $5,553,772 on behalf of Hillary Clinton as of March 30, 2016. Correct the Record is what is referred to as a Carey Pac, and so does not have to document independent expenditures for candidates.
The term Carey PAC comes from an obscure FEC rule issued in 2011, in response to a U.S. District Court ruling, Carey v. FEC. As the FEC explained in guidance that October, political advocates are allowed to create “non-contribution accounts,” which can raise unlimited funds from individuals, corporations and labor unions as long as they don’t contribute to candidates. These accounts can be created “for the purpose of financing independent expenditures, other advertisements that refer to a Federal candidate, and generic voter drives,” the FEC said.
Correct the Record lists total contributions of $3,436,572, of which it spent $3,104,477 as of the date of its last report, December 31, 2015. You can see a list of its donors here. Its two largest donors were Priorities USA in the amount of $1,000,000, and Hillary for America, in the amount of $275,615. It spent $255,420 in salaries, fundraising fees and administrative costs. Correct the record also spent $62,000 on “Contributions to federal candidates.” That leaves spending by Correct the Record of roughly $2, 787,000 that was not reported to the FEC.
SuperPacs that Support Sanders
There is one significant SuperPac that supports Sanders: National Nurses United for Patients Protection Pac, which is the PAC of the National Nurses United union. With nearly 185,000 members, NNU is “the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in U.S. history.”
Here are the top donors for National United Nurses SuperPac (i.e., those donations that exceeded $200):
Yes, that is correct. The largest SuperPac supporting Sanders is funded almost entirely by the union that formed it, National Nurses United. No billionaires. No ties to the Koch brothers. I was unable to find any information that shows Sanders’ associates are affiliated in any way with this PAC. To date, this NNU Pac has spent $2,343,165 on independent ad buys, etc. for Sanders.
The only other SuperPac that has made expenditures on behalf of the Sanders campaign is Progressive Kick. They spent $2,885.
Top Donors — Career
I have one last data set for you to consider. Open Secrets list the largest individual donors to Clinton and Sanders over the course of their entire political careers. Again, these lists include Here are the donors for each.
Bernie Sanders — Career Top Donors
Disclaimer for Sanders Career Top Donors at Open Secrets:
This table lists the top donors to this candidate in 1989-2016. The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.
Hillary Clinton — Career Top Donors
Disclaimer for Clinton Career Top Donors at Open Secrets:
This table lists the top donors to this candidate in 1999-2016. The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.
The following information has been provided in the interest of transparency regarding the campaign finances of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
Thank you.