The Big Money California Donors Bankrolling GOP Election Deniers
- 'Who Are the Califorians Bankrolling Election Deniers?' By Capital and Main for Daily Kos, Nov. 4, 2022. - Ed.
- PayPal founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel has donated $30,057,984 to 12 election-denying candidates in 2021-22. Billionaire Trump backer Thiel leads the pack. -
Despite being solidly Democratic for decades, California contributes more money to the GOP than any state other than Florida. This election cycle, much of that funding is going to members of one of the GOP’s most extreme clubs: election deniers.
Election denial is a spectrum that includes everything from conspiracy theories regarding antifa or Venezuela switching votes to unfounded concerns about the reliability of mail-in ballots. The effect is often the same: undermining trust in the democratic process. For the purposes of this article, a candidate is considered an election denier if they’ve made unsubstantiated claims of significant voter impropriety, objected to or refused to acknowledge Biden’s 2020 electoral victory, or cast doubt on the ability to gauge the legitimacy of elections. This cycle, most Republican nominees for House, Senate, and key statewide offices are election deniers. Some GOP donors may simply be looking to further their own economic agenda by supporting small government & limited regulation, but Nancy MacLean, historian & author of Democracy in Chains, considers them responsible for the GOP’s anti-democratic movement:
“Donors who are far to the right of ordinary Republicans on questions of political economy are proving willing to weaponize prejudices in order to get base voters out to the polls,” she says. “Donors have now shown they will leverage disinformation to animate that base that gets more & more ‘loony right’ with things like QAnon, the attack on the Capitol, and election denial.”
According to Bob Stern, the former president of the Center for Governmental Studies & co-author of the Political Reform Act of 1974, it should come as no surprise that many of those donors call the Golden State home.
“California has always been known as the ATM for the rest of the country,” Stern says. “During races, you see all the presidential candidates, a lot of Senate candidates, and some House candidates coming out to California.”
When candidates do visit, they’re welcomed by a robust fundraising ecosystem that has raised more than half a billion dollars this cycle, which is still a far cry from the almost $1.7 billion raised in 2020. That’s because midterm races don’t attract as much attention as presidential ones do. Though there’s less money this year, each dollar is more influential. “A $5,000 contribution means a lot more in a local race than it does in a federal race,” Stern says. CA's top GOP donors are spreading out their donations to dozens of Senate & House candidates across the country. After Capital & Main cross-referenced Federal Election Commission data with statements made & actions taken by candidates, CA's biggest funders of election deniers become clear. In total, 7 CA donors whose individual political contributions totaled more than $1,000,000 gave at least $100,000 to election-denying candidates’ campaigns or single-candidate committees.
Everyone on this list also donated to PACs that subsequently donated to other election-denying candidates, but for the purposes of this article, only direct contributions are included in the count. Every donor was contacted for comment, but none responded.
- Peter Thiel, entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal in 1998. He now serves as partner at the venture capital firm Founders Fund & is chairman of Palantir Technologies, a data analytics software company he founded less than a year after selling PayPal for $1.5 bill. The co. has been used by govt. agencies incl. the FBI, NSA, DHS, ICE & the CIA (1st outside investor). Palantir has also been mired in controversy for its alleged involvement in human rights violations. Thiel has played an active financial role in politics for over a decade. But over the last 2 years, the former member of Trump’s transition team has taken an even more active role in pushing his political agenda. During Senate primaries, Thiel contributed $15 mill each to single-candidate committees supporting J.D. Vance in Ohio & Blake Masters (Thiel’s longtime friend & employee) in AZ.. While Masters & other candidates have changed their positions regarding rigged elections, some have hypothesized that the switch is merely opportunistic. That’s because extremism doesn’t pack the same electoral punch after primaries are over.
- Geoffrey Palmer is a real estate developer, attorney, competitive polo player, & the owner of G.H. Palmer Assoc., a company he founded in 1978. His real estate projects have made him one of the wealthiest people in the city, but they’ve also landed the L.A. native in hot legal water. In 1991, Palmer was charged with 15 counts of laundering campaign contributions. His contributions didn’t stop there. In the 2021-2022 election cycle, he has donated more than a quarter of a million dollars to election-deniers like Monica De La Cruz, a Trump-endorsed candidate running in Texas’s most competitive House race... - The CEO of Western National Group, Michael Hayde has helped develop over 40,000 multifamily units since joining the firm in 1971. With former Orange Co. Sheriff Brad Gates, he founded Drug Use Is Life Abuse, a nonprofit that teaches young people how to protect themselves against drugs & gangs. Hayde also serves as the treasurer & finance committee chair for United Way. He & his wife, Western Natl. Property Mgmt. Pres. Laura Khouri, have donated thousands to election-denying candidates, like Madison Cawthorn.
Cawthorn was one of more than 120 House GOP members who voted to overturn the 2020 election. He also predicted “bloodshed” if voter fraud occurred in future elections. In May, he lost his primary in the wake of mounting scandals...
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