By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, SARAH COHEN and KAREN YOURISHAUG. 1, 2015

Fewer than four hundred families are responsible for almost half the money raised in the 2016 presidential campaign, a concentration of political donors that is unprecedented in the modern era.

The vast majority of the $388 million backing presidential candidates this year is being channeled to groups that can accept unlimited contributions in support of candidates from almost any source. The speed with which such “super PACs” can raise money — sometimes bringing in tens of millions of dollars from a few businesses or individuals in a matter of days — has allowed them to build enormous campaign war chests in a fraction of the time that it would take the candidates, who are restricted in how much they can accept from a single donor.

A New York Times analysis of Federal Election Commission reports and Internal Revenue Service records shows that the fund-raising arms race has made most of the presidential hopefuls deeply dependent on a small pool of the richest Americans. The concentration of donors is greatest on the Republican side, according to the Times analysis, where consultants and lawyers have pushed more aggressively to exploit the looser fund-raising rules that have fueled the rise of super PACs. Just 130 or so families and their businesses provided more than half the money raised through June by Republican candidates and their super PACs.

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The findings also hint at two sides to the Supreme Court’s multiyear drive to deregulate the nation’s campaign finance rules, which have whittled away at limits on giving by the rich. Super PACs, unleashed by the Citizens United decision, have become de facto campaign arms, increasingly undertaking the core costs — advertising, polling and travel, for example — once assumed by candidates, who are limited to raising $2,700 per donor.

“The 2016 presidential candidates and their individual-candidate super PACs are wiping out the nation’s anticorruption candidate contribution limits,” said Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21, which favors tighter limits on political money.

But the looser rules for super PACs have also helped expand the pool of candidates, letting a small number of very wealthy people jump-start contenders who might otherwise not make it to the first primary contests next year. The super PAC backing Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, raised almost all of its money — about $3 million — from the poultry magnate Ronald Cameron, for example. A Philadelphia-area options trader and a San Francisco tech investor have provided more than half the money to super PACs supporting Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.

“Most start-up operations need an angel investor: someone who believes in the project and the candidate and puts money in to make it viable,” said David Keating, president of the Center for Competitive Politics, which pushes for fewer limits on campaign giving. He said the potential for corruption was minimal.

“Are they going to return people’s phone calls? Yeah, I’m sure they’re going to return people’s phone calls,” Mr. Keating said. “But I don’t think it’s going to drive policy.”
Fewer than four hundred families are responsible for almost half the money raised in the 2016 presidential campaign, a concentration of political donors that is unprecedented in the modern era.

The vast majority of the $388 million backing presidential candidates this year is being channeled to groups that can accept unlimited contributions in support of candidates from almost any source. The speed with which such “super PACs” can raise money — sometimes bringing in tens of millions of dollars from a few businesses or individuals in a matter of days — has allowed them to build enormous campaign war chests in a fraction of the time that it would take the candidates, who are restricted in how much they can accept from a single donor.

A New York Times analysis of Federal Election Commission reports and Internal Revenue Service records shows that the fund-raising arms race has made most of the presidential hopefuls deeply dependent on a small pool of the richest Americans. The concentration of donors is greatest on the Republican side, according to the Times analysis, where consultants and lawyers have pushed more aggressively to exploit the looser fund-raising rules that have fueled the rise of super PACs. Just 130 or so families and their businesses provided more than half the money raised through June by Republican candidates and their super PACs.

The question is whether we are in a new Gilded Age or well beyond it — to a Platinum Age,” said Michael J. Malbin, president of the Campaign Finance Institute, which tracks the flow of campaign money.

The intensifying reliance on big money in politics mirrors the concentration of American wealth more broadly. In an era when a tiny fraction of the country’s population has accumulated a huge proportion of its wealth, the rich have also been empowered by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and other regulatory changes to spend more on elections.

To peruse the top donors in presidential politics is to take a cross section of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. At least 67 are billionaires or married to one, according to Forbes. Some of the donors inherited wealth, but many are self-made: publicity-shy investors who earned billions in high-frequency trading, oilmen made rich by the fracking boom, and entrepreneurs whose bets in the health care industry have made them both wealthy and politically connected. There are polo enthusiasts, sports team owners and even presidents.

“In the donor world, it is primarily a love of economic freedom,” said Chart Westcott, a Dallas private equity investor who has contributed $200,000 to Unintimidated PAC, a group backing Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. “That’s the biggest drive for most donors — more prosperity for the country as a whole, as well as for themselves.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/sma...iving.html?_r=0

What about Donald Trump?

"Trump raised nearly $4 million in the third quarter. In total, the campaign has raised $5.8 million and spent $5.6 million. Despite proclamations that he would self-fund his candidacy, Trump still raked in unsolicited donations from nearly 74,000 people, who gave an average of $50.46."