WASHINGTON _ Missouri's megamillions U.S. Senate race is attracting financial support from the big names of Hollywood and Silicon Valley for Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. Meanwhile, an array of Republican U.S. senators _ past and present _ have helped boost the fundraising of Attorney General Josh Hawley.
McCaskill, who had raised more than $27 million for her campaign as of Oct. 1, has outraised Hawley by almost 4-1, in part because of robust fundraising from small donors. Money also has come to her through Democratic conduit ACTBlue, which matches up donors from around the country to specific races, and claims it has raised nearly $3 billion for Democratic candidates since 2004.
ACTBlue alone has funneled more than $1.3 million to McCaskill from donors across the country, according to her latest Federal Election Commission reports. In addition, the abortion rights PAC, EMILY's List, has been a conduit for roughly $105,000 in individual donations to McCaskill's campaign.
McCaskill has listed more than $134,000 in "in-kind" donations she has given to her campaign. A controversy over her use of a plane to campaign erupted earlier in the campaign, and most of those in-kind costs are McCaskill paying for the use of the plane out of her own pocket, a campaign spokeswoman said.
Hawley, according to his Federal Election Commission report, got an early boost from the PACs run by current U.S. senators, including Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., whose Rely on Your Beliefs PAC gave the maximum $10,000 to Hawley on March 29.
Commonly called "leadership PACs," they have become a way for politicians who may not be up for election themselves, such as Blunt, to aid newcomer candidates, such as Hawley, while garnering chits for future legislative and fundraising relationships. Many leadership PAC donations to Hawley came within days of the end of March or June _ right before FEC quarterly reporting deadlines, and at a time when Hawley was being criticized for lackluster fundraising.
The limited-government Club for Growth, which has also been spending independently on behalf of Hawley in Missouri, has been a conduit for more than $266,000 in others' donations to Hawley's campaign committee, according to his filings with the FEC.
McCaskill was the beneficiary of a Beverly Hills, Calif., fundraiser in early May that was notable, in part, because its star attraction was Barack Obama. It was one of the former president's first big steps back into the political arena, and he has since broken protocol and heavily campaigned for Democrats this fall, something recent presidents have not done.
That fundraiser was advertised as being hosted by "the actress Katie McGrath, film studio executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, filmmaker Steven Spielberg and other Los Angeles-area heavyweights."
McCaskill's filings show Spielberg, and Katzenberg, the founder and former CEO of Dreamworks, gave the maximum $5,400 allowed under FEC law. McGrath, CEO of the film production company Bad Robot, had previously given McCaskill that amount.
So did actresses Barbra Streisand, Kate Capshaw and Eva Longoria. Robert Iger, chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, contributed $4,860.
Actress Rita Wilson contributed $2,500; Kate Moss and Charlize Theron each gave $2,000.
The Walt Disney Employees PAC gave McCaskill $4,000; Sony Pictures Entertainment's PAC contributed $5,400; the Motion Pictures of America PAC $5,000.
Maximum $5,400 donations have come from Silicon Valley moguls Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer at Facebook; Kent Walker, a senior vice president at Google; and Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Google and of Alphabet Inc.
Their donations came just as Congress was starting to probe the use of Facebook, Google and other social media empires by Russia and foreign operators to allegedly surreptitiously and illegally influence the 2016 elections.
Hawley has made criticism of these platforms a staple of his campaign stump speech. As attorney general he has issued "investigative subpoenas" to look into whether Google's search engine violated Missouri consumer protection and antitrust laws, and to probe how Facebook tracks and shares user data.
Other contributors to McCaskill include New York fashion designer Diane Van Furstenberg, and former Monsanto President and CEO Hugh Grant. Both gave $5,400.
Besides an array of corporate, environmental, social and business PACs, ranging from Enterprise Holdings to Nike to the Human Rights Campaign and the League of Conservation Voters, McCaskill has received donations from big-name Democratic operatives
Former Obama chief of staff William Daley, now a hedge fund manager who also served as Commerce secretary under Bill Clinton, gave $2,700.
Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, who is now running for Congress in Florida, each also gave $2,700, as did Alexander and Jonathan Soros, sons of Democratic megadonor George Soros.
Former Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., who now runs his own lobbying firm in Washington, and his wife, Jane, each gave. $5,400.
Besides Blunt's PAC boost, donations of $10,000 to Hawley's campaign have come from the Hawkeye PAC (affiliated with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa); the Heller Highwater PAC of Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev.; the Alamo PAC of Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas; the Fund for a Conservative Future of Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.; the Common Values PAC of Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.; the Heartland Values PAC of Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.; and the Bluegrass Committee of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Donations of $5,000 also came from leadership PACs of Sens. Roger Wicker; R-Miss.; John Boozman, R-Ark.; and Thom Tillis, R-N.C. An additional $2,500 came from the Dakota PAC of Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and from the Wild and Wonderful PAC of Sen. Shelly Moore Capito, R-W.Va.
Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., has given Hawley $7,500, through his Show Me PAC. Rep. Billy Long, R-Mo., gave $2,700 through BILLY (Believe in Life, Liberty and Yourself).
Former Missouri Sen. John Danforth, who encouraged Hawley to run, and his wife, Sally, each individually gave the maximum $5,400.
So did former Sen. Phil Gramm, a Republican from Texas, and his wife, Wendy, former head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission in the Ronald Reagan administration. Ex-Oklahoma Republican Sen. Don Nickles gave $2,000.
Big Missouri Republican megadonors also show up on Hawley's FEC Report.
Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield each gave the maximum $2,700. So did Stanley Herzog, of Herzog Contracting in St. Joseph, Mo.
David Humphreys, who heavily bankrolled Hawley's attorney general campaign and gave an estimated $11 million to GOP candidates in 2016 under Missouri's more lax campaign finance laws, also gave Hawley $5,400, as did his wife, Debra.
Other maximum $5,400 individual donors to Hawley include Kansas City Chiefs CEO and owner Clark Hunt, and his wife, Tavia; Todd Schnuck, CEO of Schnuck Markets Inc.; former Anheuser-Busch Chairman August Busch III; Sam Fox, founder of Harbour Group; Bradford Freeman, chair of the George W. Bush Presidential Center; and H. Ross Perot Jr., son of the business magnate by the same name who ran for president in 1992 and 1996.
PACs affiliated with Charles and David Koch, big GOP donors nationally, gave $9,000. Before he became Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton ran a PAC that gave Hawley $10,000.
