New Moderate Republican Group Funding AK US Sen Candidate Dan Sullivan and Others in Targeted States
Photo Credit: APA group of major GOP donors, led by New York billionaire Paul Singer, is quietly expanding its political footprint ahead of the midterm elections in an increasingly assertive effort to shape the direction of the Republican Party.
The operation was launched discreetly last year, with the previously unreported formation of a club called the American Opportunity Alliance to bring together some of the richest pro-business GOP donors in the country, several of whom share Singer’s support for gay rights, immigration reform and the state of Israel. Around the same time, Singer and his allies also formed a federal fundraising committee called Friends for an American Majority that raised big checks for a select list of the GOP’s most highly touted 2014 Senate hopefuls.
Those candidates are among the big names expected at a two-day retreat organized by the American Opportunity Alliance set for the last week of February at a swanky Colorado resort. The closed-door event — which is also expected to draw House Speaker John Boehner and New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, according to Republicans familiar with the plans — is seen in GOP finance circles as a grand debut of sorts for Singer’s still-amorphous club….
“[D]ozens of donors…forked over checks for a December fundraiser in New York for Friends for an American Majority. Its beneficiaries were three highly competitive Republican Senate candidates: Reps. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Steve Daines of Montana, as well as Alaska’s Dan Sullivan, the former head of the state’s Department of Natural Resources.
The joint committee routed nearly $530,000 to those three candidates combined last year, according to recently filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. The contributions came from many of the top names in the Republican donor community. In addition to Ricketts, Asness, Schwab and Crow, donors included Craft, hedge fund managers John Paulson and Ken Griffin, and TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts. Along with his son Todd, who has worked with Singer on gay rights issues, Joe Ricketts leads a deep-pocketed political outfit — a linked nonprofit and super PAC both called Ending Spending — that is focused on fiscal issues.
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