"Pro-Obama super PAC finally gains traction with billionaires" by Julie Bykowicz | Bloomberg News, July 26, 2012
WASHINGTON — The Democratic billionaires are back, at least partly.
Last month was the first time a super PAC supporting President Obama attracted the attention of multiple big-money contributors, a review of Federal Election Commission records shows.
The billionaire donors to Priorities USA Action were: Irwin Jacobs, who built Qualcomm Inc.; Jon Stryker, whose fortune comes from his family’s medical supply business; and Haim Saban, a media executive who was one of President Clinton’s top fund-raisers.
The trio gave a combined $3 million, about half what the super PAC raised in June, its best month yet. It was the first time any of those donors had contributed to Priorities.
Meanwhile, George Soros, a billionaire financier who underwrote much of the failed effort to oust President George W. Bush in 2004, cut a $1 million check in June to American Bridge, a super PAC that focuses on opposition research.
The donations are significant because Obama’s supporters have lagged far behind the fund-raising pace of Republican super PACs. Priorities has raised $21 million, compared with $122 million collected by the two main groups opposing him. Eight years ago, Democratic independent groups outraised their GOP counterparts.
Republican super PACs have secured contributions from billionaires including Las Vegas Sands chairman Sheldon Adelson, Houston investor Harold Simmons, and William Koch, head of Oxbow Carbon.
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Related: The Boston Globe's Invisible Ink: Congress a Millionaires Club
