Progressive Politics

Top 10. I'm mostly surprised about how few names I know, and which names I do not see this high up.

1. Timothy Mellon

Donations to Trump groups: $76.5 million | Net worth: Nearly $1 billion

Mellon keeps a low profile–he’s rarely photographed and lists a P.O. box in a 1,000-person Wyoming town as his address–but no donor has made a bigger splash this election. An heir to an American fortune that dates back more than a century, he made some money of his own in the railroad industry. Mellon has given more than $75 million to a pro-Trump PAC (including a $50 million gift the day after Trump’s felony conviction) and another $25 million to support Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

2. Linda McMahon (spouse of Vince McMahon)

Donations to Trump groups: $16 million | Net worth: $3.1 billion

McMahon and her husband Vince (now disgraced by sexual misconduct allegations that he denies) built World Wrestling Entertainment into a billion-dollar entertainment juggernaut. She has been involved in politics for years, running unsuccessfully for Senate in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012 and then serving as head of the Small Business Administration under Trump. She’s still close to the center of the MAGA orbit, chairing the pro-Trump nonprofit America First Policy Institute, serving on the board of Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media and Technology Group and having contributed more than $15 million to Trump’s PACs.

3. Diane Hendricks

Donations to Trump groups: $6.3 million | Net worth: $20.9 billion

On the stage at the Republican National Convention in her home state of Wisconsin last month, Hendricks celebrated her title of America’s richest self-made woman, spoke about her pro-life views and accused the Biden-Harris administration of stifling entrepreneurship. A former Playboy bunny, her building materials company ABC Supply now does $20 billion in yearly revenue. “I know how hard it is to build a company from nothing,” she said. “And we need a president who understands that too.” She clearly believes Trump fits the bill: she has already poured more than $6 million into groups that support him.

4. Miriam Adelson

Donations to Trump groups: $5.8 million | Net worth: $27.8 billion

A medical doctor and the widow of casino magnate and longtime Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson, Israeli-born Miriam Adelson now owns a majority stake in the Las Vegas Sands casino empire and the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. The Adelsons gave an eye-popping $220 million to Republican causes in 2020, and Miriam is continuing to give big sums in the wake of Sheldon’s death in 2021. She has spent more than $20 million this cycle, almost all of which came on a single day in May. According to a New York Times report, Adelson plans to spend more than $90 million to support Trump (she’s given $5.8 million so far), but she has a few requests: “Be less bombastic” and “speak more directly about the economy.” She may not follow through on the full amount though–over the weekend, the Times reported that she and Trump recently exchanged a series of angry texts, during which the former president said her PAC was run by “Republicans in name only.”

5. Kelcy Warren

Donations to Trump groups: $5.8 million | Net worth: $6.2 billion

Warren’s publicly-listed Energy Transfer is best known for the highly controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, which Trump helped expedite in one of his first acts in office. Warren had given $100,000 to help elect him in 2016, then dropped more than $11 million in 2020. He’s shelled out close to $6 million this time around, though he also gave some money to Florida Gov. and Trump primary challenger Ron DeSantis last year.

6. Timothy Dunn

Donations to Trump groups: $5 million | Net worth: $2.2 billion

Trump reportedly pushed for $1 billion in contributions from oil executives during a May meeting, but Dunn is among those who didn’t need any asking–he cut a $5 million check to Trump’s super-PAC back in December. Dunn’s West Texas-based well operator CrownQuest is one of the country’s largest private oil companies. He wasn’t on the Trump train in 2016, but he started donating in 2020 and has scaled up his giving to Trump and other Republicans this cycle.

7. Elizabeth Uihlein

Donations to Trump groups: $5 million | Net worth: $6 billion

8. Richard Uihlein

Donations to Trump groups: $5 million | Net worth: $6 billion

Liz and Dick Uihlein are among the GOP’s most generous donors, giving tens of millions per cycle. They started the packaging-materials company Uline from their basement in 1980. Now it does more than $6 billion per year in sales and the catalog–which ran to more than 800 pages this year–often includes political messages from Liz, the company’s president. In 2021, the catalog celebrated Trump’s “America First” trade policies and called out publicly-held companies for being “too concerned about their stock share price.” The Uihleins, meanwhile, own 100% of their company and can broadcast their political views and pour millions of dollars–$75 million so far this cycle–into Republican campaigns without worrying about what shareholders might think.

9. Jeff Sprecher and Kelly Loeffler

Donations to Trump groups: $4.9 million | Net worth: $1.1 billion

Loeffler knows how expensive campaigns can be: She raised $92 million running for Senate in Georgia in 2020 but still lost to Raphael Warnock. Loeffler has been a donor longer than she has been a politician–she was briefly appointed to Georgia’s Senate seat in 2020, but she has been giving big sums to Republicans for over a decade. Her husband Jeff Sprecher is the founder of Intercontinental Exchange, which owns the New York Stock Exchange, and where Loeffler once served as an executive. Together, they’ve given nearly $5 million to back Trump. A spokesperson for Loeffler told Forbes that the couple also gave $1 million to help put on the Republican National Convention last month, which they consider to be a gift in support of Trump. And they plan to give more. Just this past weekend, the couple contributed another $170,000 to one of Trump’s committees at a fundraiser in Colorado.

10. Phil Ruffin

Donations to Trump groups: $3.3 million | Net worth: $2.6 billion

Ruffin is a major Trump donor, but he is also a business partner and close friend. The two co-own the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, and Ruffin married his wife Oleksandra at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump served as his best man. Ruffin has stood behind Trump since 2016, but he upped the ante for 2024. His $3.3 million in gifts to Trump’s PACs and committees so far this cycle are more than his donations in the last two elections combined.