Californians donate more than $13M to 2020 Senate races in other states
LOS ANGELES — Californians don’t have a U.S. Senate race on the ballot in 2020, but they have donated more than $13.2 million this year to senators or their challengers across the country, according to federal fundraising disclosures.
Some candidates, such as Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Doug Jones, D-Ala., have raised more money here than in their home states — a sign of California’s deep donor community and the heightened importance of control of the Senate in the Trump era.
“You can’t just be electing your own senators,” said Mike Arias, a trial attorney who donated to a candidate 2,000 miles away from his Los Angeles home. “You have to realize that to get things done, you also have to help elect other like-minded senators in other states.”
Arias, 60, donated $500 to Jones’ reelection campaign, and he plans to contribute to Senate candidates in Arizona and Maine.
Democratic candidates received more than $8.6 million from Californians in the first nine months of 2019, from donors including Hollywood moguls, Silicon Valley CEOs and more modest givers.
The Los Angeles Times calculated California’s role in funding Senate campaigns using records filed with the Federal Election Commission that include all donations over $200 between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30. Donations under $200 are not itemized, so it is impossible to know which states they came from based on FEC filings. The state has long been a dependable source of donations for presidential candidates of both parties. President Donald Trump picked up $15 million on a twoday fundraising blitz last month. And there have always been Californians who have contributed to out-of-state races.
But Democratic fundraisers say their ranks and donations have swelled since Trump’s election. In the 2018 cycle, donors successfully focused on flipping the U.S. House of Representatives.
“We’re seeing some of that energy now move to the Senate,” said Andy Spahn, a Los Angelesbased fundraiser who has deep ties to Hollywood donors and is a longtime political advisor to studio mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg.
“There is a very real understanding about the importance of the Senate, particularly as it relates to judicial appointments,” he added. “The next step after covering the presidential bases has been doing everything possible to pick up the three or four Senate seats needed” to end Republican control of the chamber.
Several Democratic Senate candidates visited California on fundraising trips this month, notably to headline an event at the Bel-Air home of Walt Disney Studios Co-chairman Alan Horn and his wife, Cindy. Donors each spent up to $25,000 to support the campaigns of New Hampshire
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, and candidates Jaime Harrison of South Carolina, Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, Amy McGrath of Kentucky and Mark Kelly of Arizona.
Senate races in Arizona, Colorado, South Carolina, Kentucky and Alabama have received the most money from California through Sept. 30, more than $1 million each, according to FEC records. California is among the top five donation states for at least one candidate in 31 of the 35 Senate races on the November 2020 ballot.
One example is Jones, the Alabaman trying to keep the Senate seat he won in a 2017 special election over Roy Moore, a Republican accused of sexual assault and inappropriate behavior with girls. It was the first time a Democrat won that seat in a quarter-century, and the party is desperate to hang onto it in 2020.
Californians have given Jones’ campaign more than $664,000, the most he has raised from any state; his haul from Alabama was more than $521,000. His nine GOP rivals have raised more than $295,000 in California and $2 million in Alabama.
Kelly, a former astronaut, has raised the most from Californians — $1.4 million — of all the Senate candidates in the country. That’s more than three times the California donations to his GOP rival, Sen. Martha McSally, who was appointed to fill the seat vacated by the late John McCain. The Arizona race is among the most competitive in the nation.