A conservative billionaire gave a staggering $50 million to a pro-Donald Trump super PAC last month, a day after the former president was convicted on all counts in his Manhattan hush money trial, according to new campaign finance filings.
Timothy Mellon, an heir of the Mellon banking family, made the mammoth donation to Make America Great Again Inc., which recently said it would spend $100 million in the coming months on a nationwide advertising blitz. The New York Times, the first to report the donation, reported that the super PAC has already reserved about $30 million in ads in Georgia and Pennsylvania — key swing states in the next election — to run around the Fourth of July holiday.
Filings with the Federal Election Commission show the gift accounted for more than two-thirds of the money MAGA Inc. brought in in May, and the Times noted it could be among the largest single contributions to a political campaign ever.
Mellon, who lives in Wyoming, has become a key Republican donor in recent years, writing eight-figure checks beginning in 2018 after largely being unknown in fundraising circles. Still, many of those who have benefited from his money have not met him, and Reuters described him as an unusual figure who is almost never in the spotlight.
He’s already given $100 million in this election cycle alone after donating $25 million to super PACs supporting both Trump and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It’s unclear if the latest burst of funding signals that his support of Kennedy is over.
The run-up to this year’s election is sure to be rife with supersized donations. Outside groups have pledged to spend more than $1 billion in support of President Joe Biden, and mega-donors have lined up behind his reelection campaign.
Biden and Trump are scheduled to face off in their first debate of the campaign next Thursday in Atlanta.
Kennedy’s campaign raised just $2.6 million in May and had just $6.4 million in the bank at the end of the month, according to FEC filings. His bid has largely relied on the wealth of his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, who contributed $8 million of her own money in April.
The super PAC supporting Kennedy brought in only $280,000 last month.