The costly area of campaign politics has claimed its share of the fortune of another business tycoon with ambitions for higher office.
Rep. David Trone, a Maryland Democrat and co-owner of the country’s largest wine retailer, poured more than $60 million of his personal wealth into his Maryland Senate campaign, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. He lost the Democratic primary this week to Angela Alsobrooks, a county executive whose campaign spent about a tenth of that amount.
A day after Mr. Trone’s defeat, Nicole Shanahan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vice president and a Silicon Valley investor who recently divorced Google co-founder Sergey Brin, announced that she was selling her stake in Mr. Kennedy’s independent presidential campaign will double the campaign. Her donation of an additional $8 million brings her total donations to nearly $15 million, even though no third-party or independent candidate has ever come close to winning a presidential election in modern U.S. history.
Mr. Kennedy’s campaign is so far only about half as expensive as the most expensive self-financed presidential campaign this cycle: Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican entrepreneur, spent more than $30 million of his own fortune on his failed candidacy and dropped out in January after spending $3,500 -dollars per vote won in the Iowa caucuses. Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor who sold his software company to Microsoft for $1 billion, didn’t even get that far: He dropped out before a single vote was cast, after spending nearly $14 million on his presidential election campaign.
It’s a time-honored tradition in US politics: wealthy people burn dizzying sums of money to advance their political ambitions through long-term candidacies, or – as in Mr Trone’s case – campaigns with good odds that just don’t work out in the end.
A self-funded campaign is not always a recipe for disaster. Mr. Trone, for example, was successfully elected to Congress after spending a total of $31.3 million of his fortune to compete in two House races. He lost to Jamie Raskin in the 2016 Democratic primary, but won the 2018 primary to succeed Rep. John Delaney, another wealthy Democrat. Jon S. Corzine, a liberal Wall Street executive, spent about $60 million, or $108 million adjusted for inflation, to win a Senate seat in New Jersey in 2000.
Here are some of the biggest money pit campaigns:
Michael R. Bloomberg, 2020 presidential campaign
Personal wealth contributed: $1 billion
Dollars per vote: $426.76
It was by far the most expensive election campaign flop in American history.
Michael Bloomberg, the founder of financial and media giant Bloomberg LP and one of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors, had previously made headlines and made history for spending eye-popping sums on his political ambitions. He invested hundreds of millions of dollars of his personal fortune to run for mayor of New York and remained in office from 2002 to 2013.
But the most expensive race of his career – and also the most expensive presidential campaign ever in US history – was notable not only for the size of Mr. Bloomberg’s war chest, but also for the fact that the campaign ended in spectacular defeat. The former mayor dropped out of the race about 100 days after entering the race.
Tom Steyer, 2020 presidential campaign
Personal wealth contributed: $341 million
Dollars per vote: $1,320.37
In any other race, in any other year, Tom Steyer’s 2020 presidential campaign would have been a record-breaking flop. Mr. Steyer spent $341 million of his hedge fund fortune and ultimately received 258,848 votes, the highest money-to-vote ratio of any presidential candidate in U.S. history, and he won no delegates before dropping out of the race.
The gaping hole that Mr. Steyer’s presidential ambitions have left in his wallet is rivaled only by that of Mr. Bloomberg, who spent about three times as much and attracted far more attention when he entered the Democratic primary late.
Linda E. McMahon, 2010 and 2012 Senate campaigns
Personal wealth contributed: a total of $98.8 million
Dollars per vote: $85.95
Linda McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, spent nearly $100 million to self-fund two Senate campaigns in Connecticut. With her enormous cash advantage, she decisively secured the Republican nomination, but ultimately lost both races in 2010 and 2012 by large margins. At the time, it was the most anyone had ever spent of their own wealth to run for federal office.
Ms. McMahon later donated generously to Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign and then joined his Cabinet as head of the Small Business Administration. The senior adviser to her 2012 campaign, Chris LaCivita, is now one of the top officials for Mr. Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Steve Forbes, 1996 and 2000 presidential campaigns
Personal wealth contributed: a combined $74 million
Steve Forbes, then chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine, ran two presidential campaigns as a Republican, each time spending about $37 million of his personal fortune on the nomination – a total of $74 million, or $139 million adjusted for inflation.
The wealthy publisher advocated the elimination of tax brackets and the introduction of a simple flat tax rate – an idea that later found favor with other Republican presidential candidates. Mr. Forbes won some state primaries in 1996, came second to George W. Bush in the 2000 Iowa caucuses, but ultimately came up short in both campaigns.
Ross Perot, 1992 presidential campaign
Personal Net Worth: $65 million
Source link
2024-05-17 03:56:09
www.nytimes.com
