content=”https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https%3A%2F%2Fcloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com%2Fwapo%2FFZX2XPGWCOAL3LQMJV73FVXHFQ.JPG&w=1200″
Last week, Elon Musk became the largest individual political donor in modern U.S. history. His largest donations have gone to Republican-aligned PACs, including the Senate Leadership Fund PAC, America PAC, Congressional Leadership Fund, Fight for Kentucky, and Lone Star Liberty PAC, all of which Musk gave over $10 million to.
These groups have poured $431 million into ads across congressional races during the general midterm elections, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the ad-tracking firm AdImpact through Oct. 20.
The Senate Leadership Fund, the GOP’s super PAC dedicated to electing Republicans to the Senate, received Musk’s top donation of $168 million. The SLF immediately transferred the majority of that sum to another PAC, Texas PAC, that supports Republican Ken Paxton. Texas PAC has spent over $140 million on ads in the Texas Senate race.
Musk also gave over $139 million to America PAC, a conservative super PAC founded by the trillionaire. This group has been spending on canvassing and get out the vote campaigns, in addition to ads.
Musk’s third-largest donation of $30 million was to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC that aims to elect Republicans to the House. The CLF has spent the most money on ads in Michigan’s 7th, North Carolina’s 1st and Michigan’s 10th districts — all of which are considered “toss-up” races by the Cook Political Report.
Fight For Kentucky, a super PAC that supports Kentucky Senate Republican candidate Nate Morris, received $10 million from Musk. The group spent around $14 million in the primaries, but less than $10,000 in the general election.
Additional Coverage
Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Oct. 21, and 59 years to the day since a protest in D.C. against the Vietnam War produced one of the most iconic images of the era.
Back in the present day, this morning’s edition of The 7 briefing leads with some apparent progress after days of worsening relations between the U.S. and Ukraine.
Yesterday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said U.S. intelligence sharing had been restored. The U.S. denies imposing restrictions in the first place.
The briefing continues with intensifying scrutiny on donations to President Donald Trump’s ballroom. A Post report last week revealed all the major donors to the White House project. Now, congressional Democrats are pressing some donors for more information.
Further down, The 7 covers a new poll showing Americans’ skepticism of AI. We look at the benefits of Sober October. And we meet an 83-year-old man training for his 50th NYC Marathon.
Read today’s edition of The 7 here.
There’s a relatively rare severe-weather risk on Wednesday in parts of Arizona and Southern California.
The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center has outlined a marginal (Level 1 out of 5) risk in an area that includes Phoenix and Tucson.
Separately, an isolated, brief tornado could also occur along the immediate coastline in Southern California. That’s because a few rotating cells could approach the coast with waterspouts. If a waterspout comes ashore, it would briefly produce tornado damage before dissipating within a mile or two of moving inland.
The instigating weather system bringing the risk to the Southwest is an upper-level low — or a high altitude pocket of cold air, low pressure and spin. It was centered offshore from Southern California on Tuesday afternoon, and was pinwheeling warm, moist air northward ahead of it.
The same setup will also bring an influx of Pacific moisture to the Copper State, prompting a flood watch for most of Arizona.
The juiced-up air mass will set the stage for showers and storms, and probably a few severe thunderstorms, on Wednesday afternoon. Storms could drop a quick inch or two of rainfall, leading to localized flash flooding on Arizona’s sandy soils. A few of the storms could become supercells, or rotating thunderstorms.
That’s because the upper-level low-pressure area is causing a kink in the jet stream, which leads to a dip known as a trough. That will introduce wind shear, or changing winds with height. Tall thunderstorm clouds will be affected by those changing winds and rotate.
That will lead to at least some tornado risk — a rarity for this part of the U.S.
Three prominent Latin American political leaders have endorsed Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Florida) in recent weeks, prompting criticism from some Democrats who describe the international support as foreign interference in a U.S. election.
Salazar, who is running for reelection in a district President Donald Trump won by nearly 15 points in 2024, has faced backlash for saying that the administration’s signature immigration enforcement polices have gone too far. Now, as she courts Latino voters in South Florida, she has shared public messages of support from friendly right-wing leaders in Latin America, including Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado.
Last week, Salazar shared a video on X from Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella, a far-right leader endorsed by Trump who expressed his support for Salazar, calling her “Colombia’s best friend in the United States Congress.” And on Monday, she shared a videofrom Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei, speaking directly to Miami and endorsing her reelection, saying she understands Latin America and will confront “socialist leftists.”
The endorsements have drawn condemnation on social media and from some Democrats, in particular Gregory Meeks (D-New York) the ranking Democratic member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who on Tuesday urged Congress to “make clear that any foreign electoral interference is unacceptable.”
“President Milei’s endorsement is an inappropriate intrusion into our democracy,” Meeks said in a statement on X. “American elections are decided by American voters, not foreign heads of state.”
In a statement provided to The Post, Salazar said Meeks’ “attacks are a badge of honor and further confirm the radical socialist agenda my opponent would help advance in Congress if elected.”
Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, a Democratic megadonor, is swooping in to help his party retake the House majority, pouring more than $80 million into the midterms over the last two months and leaving the door open to giving more before Election Day, his adviser said.
Bloomberg gave $16 million to the Democratic-aligned House Majority PAC. He also gave $24 million to Everytown for Gun Safety, a group he helped found more than a decade ago that is supporting House candidates across the country.
The billionaire also contributed $2.5 million to a super PAC supporting James Talarico, the Democratic Senate candidate in Texas — the only Senate race his money has gone to so far this cycle, said Howard Wolfson, Bloomberg’s political adviser.
Much of Bloomberg’s money is going toward the House with the goal of widening the possible margin of victory for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), who is likely to become the House speaker if Democrats win it back, Wolfson said. Democrats need to net only three seats to win the House.
“There is a meaningful difference between a majority of, let’s say, 219 and 230, right?” Wolfson said.
His spending so far, which has not yet been publicly disclosed, was first reported by the New York Times.
Bloomberg’s investments are a bright spot for Democrats, who are dramatically outpaced by Republicans when it comes to individual political donors.
Around the same time Bloomberg began his spending blitz, Elon Musk was becoming the biggest solo political donor in modern American history. He put $369 million into the midterms to support Republicans.
The United States is actively working for the release of a retired American teacher held for four years by Russia, President Donald Trump said Tuesday, confirming the identity of the person Washington has been trying to free.
Stephen Hubbard, 74, is a Michigan native who was living in eastern Ukraine in 2022 when it was overrun by Russian forces and he was detained. He is the lone American in Russian custody whom the State Department classifies as wrongfully detained.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff plans to meet Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Russian leader’s hometown of St. Petersburg. Trump has previously said the U.S. was seeking to free a “hostage” from Russia but hadn’t confirmed the person’s identity until Tuesday.
Asked about Hubbard in the Oval Office, Trump said: “Just stick with me. I don’t want to talk about it. But everybody’s been after Hubbard for a long time, long before I got here. And just remember that question for a couple of days from now, okay?”
“I’ve been talking to President Putin about Mr. Hubbard. I’ve been talking to him at length,” Trump added. “I’ve asked him to release him. We’ll see what happens, okay? Let’s see what happens. I’d love to get him back. It’s time. It’s time. It’s time to have Mr. Hubbard back.”
A Russian court sentenced Hubbard in 2024 to six years and 10 months in prison after he was accused of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine, Russian state media reported at the time. Hubbard was accused of joining a Ukrainian territorial defense unit at the time of the Russian full-scale invasion in 2022. Russian media said that he pleaded guilty to the charges — which his family questioned, citing what they said were his longtime pacifist views.
The effort to free Hubbard comes as Trump pressures Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to make a deal with Putin by handing over territory that Russia has not been able to conquer, a move that the Ukrainians believe would amount to defeat.
Could the Deep South be blushing slightly blue — or at least less red? The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has shifted two Southern Senate races to the left, moving South Carolina to “lean Republican” from “likely Republican” and Mississippi to “likely Republican” from “solid Republican.”
Democrats are taking the tilt seriously, as evidenced by a $1.2 million ad buy in Mississippi to attack incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) that the Senate Majority PAC announced Tuesday.
The spot, airing on television around the state, contrasts Democratic nominee Scott Colom’s career as a prosecutor with Hyde-Smith’s political record, accusing her of being ineffective and self-enriching.
It’s a steep hill for Colom. Hyde-Smith defeated former agriculture secretary Mike Espy by 10 percentage points in 2020, and President Donald Trump carried Mississippi by nearly 23 percentage points in 2024.
In South Carolina, Democrat Annie Andrews is challenging Sen. Darline Graham (R), who in July was appointed to serve the remaining term of her late brother, Lindsey Graham.
Republicans face big headwinds nationwide: a struggling economy, high grocery and gas prices, and the war in Iran. Cook’s decision to shift the races is based in part on candidate quality and is “further evidence that Democrats have expanded the map into red territory,” analyst Jessica Taylor wrote in her explanation for the ratings change.
The post Musk-backed PACs have spent over $400 million on advertising appeared first on Washington Post.
