(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Miriam Adelson, one of the most prolific donors backing Donald Trump since his 2016 run for the White House, poured $95 million into her super PAC supporting him, according to the latest disclosures with the Federal Election Commission.
The donation exceeds the $75 million she and her late husband, former Las Vegas Sands Chairman Sheldon Adelson, combined to give to Preserve America PAC in the same period in the 2020 election. The new donations place Miriam Adelson among the biggest Republican contributors backing Trump this cycle.
Preserve America spent $93 million, and entered October with just $7.4 million in the bank. It has concentrated advertising buys in the so-called Blue Wall states of Michigan and Wisconsin, data from AdImpact show, two states that Trump won in 2016 but lost four years later.
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Deep-pocketed donors are playing a critical role in supporting Trump, whose campaign lags far behind Vice President Kamala Harris’ in fundraising. Trump has outsourced much of his campaign’s get-out-the-vote efforts to super PACs, including Adelson’s and another founded by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.
Harris has been outspending Trump’s campaign in all seven of the battleground states that will decide the election in the final stretch since Labor Day. Her media buys over that period total $314 million, compared to $173 million for Trump, according to AdImpact.
Harris’ financial advantage has also allowed her to open more then 330 field offices staffed with more than 2,000 paid employees to help conduct its voter mobilization operations. With polling margins razor thin — Trump’s lead in the RealClearPolitics average of battleground state polls is 0.7% — how much campaigns have to spend can be decisive.
Unlike in 2020, when Preserve America got donations from other big Republican donors including billionaire ABC Supply Co. owner Diane Hendricks, Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus, and investment banker Warren Stephens, the super PAC attracted a mere $85,402 from other donors.
Adelson stayed neutral in the primaries but began backing Trump soon after he clinched the Republican nomination. She gave $844,600 to his campaign and the Republican Party, the maximum amount allowed by law, in May and put $5 million into her super PAC as well.
She appeared with Trump at a September antisemitism event in which the former president stirred controversy by saying that if he lost, Jewish voters who didn’t support him would bear much of the blame. He also said that Israel’s continued existence could depend on whether or not he won the election.
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