Peter Thiel, president and founder of Clarium Capital Management LLC, speaks during the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, Florida, on Thursday, April 7, 2022.
Eva Marie Uzcategui | Bloomberg | beautiful pictures
Billionaire and Republican major donor Peter Thiel’s $32 million investment in the 2022 midterm elections has yielded mixed results, as two of his former employees split the races. entering the United States Senate will help decide control of the House of Representatives.
In Ohio, Republicans JD Vance defends chair held by GOP against Democratic Representative Tim Ryan. While Thiel notably chose not to sponsor Vance in the increasingly red state general election, his $15 million donation to the pro-Vance super PAC helped this candidate emerge from the crowded GOP primaries to replace the Senate Retired Republican Senator Rob Portman. Vance once have worked at the investment firm Mithril Capital co-founded by Thiel.
Instead, Thiel chose to pour more money into the Republican Blake Masters bid to oust Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. As predicted by NBC News, Kelly beat the challenge by leading the Masters by more than 5 percentage points. With Kelly’s win, Democrats need to prevail in one of two underrated Nevada races and Georgia to keep their majority.
Thiel is particularly interested in helping Masters, who was an executive at Thiel Capital. The venture capitalist, who has an estimated net worth of over $4 billion, held Fundraising and actively use its vast network to raise money for the Masters campaign in the final months of the election.
Thiel soon beat the Masters’ Senate bid with a $15 million donation to the super PAC supporting Masters in the Arizona primaries, according to Federal Election Commission filings. He gave another $2.5 million to the PAC in October, just weeks before Election Day.
Thiel made smaller sums for other Republican congressional candidates around the country during the midterms. The recipients are mostly incumbents running for safe seats in the House.
The PayPal co-founder gave $2,900 in the primary election to Republican Representative Ted Budd, who defeated the Democratic Party’s Cheri Beasley in the race to become the North’s next U.S. senator. Carolina. This amount is the most that an individual can lawfully give to the campaign itself — as opposed to a PAC that supports a candidate — during a primary or general election.
Thiel donated to seven other midterm candidates in races NBC News had scheduled. According to NBC, only one of those candidates lost.
Republican Joe Budd, who saw two checks for $2,900 from Thiel, lost to Democrat Jared Moskowitz in the battle to represent Florida’s 23rd congressional district, according to NBC News. According to FEC filings, one of those donations went to Budd’s successful primaries and the other to his general election against Moskowitz.
Records show Thiel contributed similar amounts to Republican Deputies Mike McCaul, Chris Stewart, Michael Waltz, Tom Cole and Mario Diaz-Balart. All of these people are expected to be re-elected to Congress, according to NBC News.
