Nocontest for Clinton in outside money race

Six years after a Supreme Court decision opened vast new channels for money to flow into national elections, Democrats have built the largest and best-coordinated apparatus of outside groups operating in the 2016 presidential campaign, defying expectations that conservative and corporate wealth would dominate the race.

A dozen organizations raised more than $200 million through the beginning of October and since May have spent more than $110 million on television, digital and radio ads in support of Hillary Clinton, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission through Thursday

The handful of organizations backing Donald Trump have raised less than half

that amount, a steep dive from four years ago, when wealthy Republicans poured hundreds of millions of dollars into groups backing Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

The Democrats’ success this year reflects, in part, Clinton’s close personal ties to her party’s elite donors and her allies’ willingness to exploit the 2010 ruling in the Citizens United case far more aggressively than President Barack Obama did.

But the Democrats are also deeply indebted to one man: Trump, whose provocations and tirades — along with a loud crusade against his own party’s donors — have virtually shut off what once promised to be a half-billion dollar spigot of outside money.

“Everyone thought that we would be outspent, that there would be significant operations built at the presidential level for the other candidate,” said Guy Cecil, a former Clinton aide who heads Priorities USA Action, the main hub of big Democratic giving. “That obviously hasn’t happened.” Courting donors early

The biggest groups set up or expanded by conservatives since Citizens United, including American Crossroads, founded by Karl Rove, and the network overseen by Charles G. and David H. Koch, are absent from the presidential campaign, focusing instead on protecting Republicans in Congress.

“Unlike President Obama four years ago, Clinton embraced the outside money game and shrewdly empowered a single group to carry her message,” said Steven J. Law, president of Ameri- can Crossroads and its sister organizations, “in contrast to the boardwalk arcade of groups supporting Trump.”

Citizens United paved the way for independent groups that could raise unlimited amounts of money from unions, corporations and wealthy individuals to spend on elections, as long as they did not coordinate with individual candidates or parties. Republican donors moved quickly to seize on the ruling, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the past three national elections, while Democrats struggled to persuade their donors to invest in super PACs at the same scale.

Trump’s rivals for the Republican nomination were backed by an array of super PACs and outside groups set up by their allies and former aides, seeming to set the stage for even greater spending in 2016. But Trump unexpectedly triumphed, exploiting his knack for free publicity and relying on his own fortune and money from grass-roots supporters. In part because of that success, Trump was slow to incorporate super PACs into his general election strategy.

By contrast, Clinton began personally courting donors for outside groups almost as soon as she entered the campaign in spring 2015.

The Democrats’ tentpole is Priorities USA, a 5-yearold super PAC that has access to the party’s biggest donors and the implicit blessing of Clinton, is on track to raise $173 million by Election Day. That is more than any equivalent Democratic effort in his- tory, including the controversial big-money groups set up by wealthy liberals a decade ago to unseat President George W. Bush.

The PAC is closely coordinating with environmental and labor activists and other organizations set up to harness support from veterans, African-Americans and Latinos. Pooling their money

In twice-monthly meetings at a Democratic law firm in downtown Washington, officials at Priorities have convened representatives of a dozen super PACs and progressive organizations to carve out swing-state turf and share intelligence from organizers on the ground. Several have pooled money with Priorities USA to purchase television and digital advertising through the same media firms, allowing smaller groups to get better rates. (Other leftleaning organizations, including labor unions and a super PAC founded by billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, have separately spent significant money on field organizing.)

Behind the partnerships is an astonishing concentration of liberal wealth. More than two-thirds of the total money that groups supporting Clinton have raised — $133 million — comes from just 30 families.

Donald Sussman, a hedge fund investor and longtime liberal donor, has donated $19 million to Priorities USA, among the largest amounts any left-leaning donor has ever given to a single super PAC. Members of the billionaire Pritzker family, which founded the Hyatt hotel chain, have contributed $14 million to Priorities and other pro-Clinton groups. The liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros has given $13.5 million, far more than he gave to support Obama four years ago.

As most of the big Republican groups have stayed away from the presidential race, a small constellation of groups run by Trump allies has sprung up in their place, raising $46 million since the beginning of the cycle.

The National Rifle Association, one of the few traditional conservative allies to get behind Trump’s campaign, has put $20 million into a super PAC supporting Trump and other Republicans. But many of the new Trump groups are getting into the game late, when advertising rates have skyrocketed, and they are competing against one another for donors and turf, sometimes even cannibalizing Trump’s own fundraising. Big donors to Trump

Another group, Future45, has raised $13 million for ads criticizing Clinton, and an affiliated nonprofit group that does not disclose its donors has drawn millions more. But their spending appears targeted at states with competitive Senate races, with the goal of protecting Republicans down the ballot from any damage Trump might do.

Trump has attracted some generous individual supporters, according to disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commis- sion through last week. Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, have donated $10 million to groups running advertising against Clinton. Bernard Marcus, cofounder of Home Depot, has provided $7 million to a pair of pro-Trump super PACs.

A surprisingly small donor to Trump is Robert Mercer, a New York hedge fund executive. Mercer and his family have invested millions of dollars over the years in conservative advocacy groups and media outlets, some of which are now among Trump’s biggest supporters. But Mercer has been relatively parsimonious with the cash he has put into a Mercer-controlled super PAC supporting Trump, contributing just $2 million.