The Republicans Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who face tight second-round elections on Tuesday in Georgia, received a late wave of donations from the real estate and financial sectors.
Their Democratic opponents, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively, enjoyed another advantage in fundraising in disputes, which will determine whether Democrats or the Republican Party will have an advantage in the Senate.
Donors on Wall Street are contributing to Perdue and Loeffler because they fear that a Democratic Senate will help President-elect Joe Biden push for tougher regulations for the financial sector, said a Republican Party strategist with banking customers. This person did not want to be identified to speak freely.
Biden is trying to raise taxes on companies and families that earn more than $ 400,000.
Mike Novogratz, a longtime finance executive with an outside effort to help the two Democrats in Georgia, previously suggested that Democratic donors on Wall Street may not offer much help to Warnock and Ossoff.
“It will be a money war,” Novogratz told CNBC in November, after neither candidate received 50% in his election, leading to a runoff. “That said, many Wall Streeters like the divided government,” he added.
The financial community’s huge contributions to the two Republican candidates are a departure from the presidential election, when these donors agreed to invest more than $ 74 million in Biden’s candidacy for president. Many abandoned Trump’s candidacy for re-election and his subsequent legal effort to annul the election.
All the money invested in external campaigns and political action committees has generated nearly $ 490 million in TV ad spending since November 4, according to data from Ad Impact. More than $ 100 million has been spent on TV ads for the two races since December 28, Ad Impact said.
Perdue, who fell behind in fundraising from his rival, Ossoff, between October and mid-December, recently saw a wave of support from finance and real estate executives. At least 30 executives in these industries donated between $ 1,000 and the maximum campaign contribution of $ 2,800 to Perdue, according to the records of the Federal Election Commission.
Perdue has been under scrutiny for a series of stock talks that sometimes seem to coincide with Congressional briefings while he was on major Senate committees. Perdue denied wrongdoing. The New York Times reported in November that some of Perdue’s businesses were the focus of a Justice Department inquiry. Perdue’s team said at the time that the Justice Department “cleared Senator Perdue of any wrongdoing”.
Hedge fund founder John Paulson gave $ 2,800 to Perdue’s campaign on December 14. Paulson became famous during the financial crisis for short selling in real estate.
Randal Nardone, co-founder of investment firm Fortress, gave Perdue $ 2,800 the same day. Fortress has nearly $ 50 billion in assets under management.
Edward Mule, the CEO of investment firm Silver Point Capital, gave Perdue $ 5,600 on December 22. That same day, Richard Kent Long, the senior vice president of the private prison group GEO Group, gave Perdue $ 1,000.
Other major recent donors to Perdue from these industries include Neal Aronson, founder and managing partner of private equity firm Roark Capital; Clifford Asness, co-founder of the hedge fund AQR Capital Management; Glenn August, CEO of investment firm Oak Hill Advisors; Steve Witkoff, the CEO of the real estate giant Witkoff Group, and John Lehman, the president of the investment firm JF Lehman & Company.
Jane Goldman, who runs real estate Solil Management, donated $ 2,800 to Perdue and Loeffler in the last two weeks of December. Forbes says Goldman is worth $ 3 billion.
Meanwhile, Loeffler’s campaign has recently seen at least a dozen contributions coming from executives in similar positions. She is married to Jeffrey Sprecher, CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. Sprecher gave $ 10 million to a pro-Loeffler super PAC in 2020, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Loeffler herself was examined by a series of stock negotiations at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, prompting the couple to sell all of their individual shares.
In late December, Robert Grammig, a partner at the Holland & Knight law firm, gave Loeffler $ 2,800. Grammig specializes in mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance.
Jared Yavers, executive at Yellow Cab Holdings, donated $ 2,500 to the Loeffler campaign on December 21. Yellow Cab is an investment company focused on real estate.
Thomas Hauske Jr., chief executive of Marshall Street Capital, based in Wisconsin, gave $ 2,500 to Loeffler’s campaign two days later.
Democrats Warnock and Ossoff received donations from the real estate and financial sectors, albeit at a lower rate than their Republican opponents. Between the two Democrats, they came together to receive the support of nearly two dozen finance and housing executives in the later stages of the dispute.
Karen Pritzker, an investor and billionaire heiress to the Pritzker family fortune, gave Ossoff $ 2,800 on December 23, the records show. Pritzker’s family office helped finance LaunchCapital, an initial investment fund.
Alan Pardee, managing partner of Valor Equity Partners, gave Ossoff $ 1,000 that day.
George Van Amson, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley, donated $ 1,000 to the Warnock campaign on December 14.
Representatives from all four campaigns did not respond to requests for comment.