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Virginia gubernatorial candidates Democrat Terry McAuliffe, left, and Republican Glenn Youngkin, right, at the Virginia FREE leadership luncheon in McLean, Virginia.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Three weeks before election day, Virginia’s GOP candidate for governor and ex-Carlyle Group co-CEO Glenn Youngkin has narrowed the gap with his Democratic opponent, former governor Terry McAuliffe: Recent polling averages put McAuliffe ahead of his Republican rival by just 2.9%, within the poll’s margin of error. But in the fundraising race, McAuliffe has racked up donations from several billionaires on his way to a $44.5 million haul, ahead of Youngkin’s $42.3 million. McAuliffe also has more than twice as much cash on hand, with $7.8 million left in the bank compared to $3.5 million for Youngkin, according to public filings.
McAuliffe has raised more than $1.2 million from at least ten billionaires so far, compared to Youngkin’s haul of $280,000 from seven billionaires and their spouses. Because Youngkin has loaned $16.5 million to his own campaign, the two have similar fundraising totals—but McAuliffe has been more successful at gathering external cash.
Nearly 40% of the cash Youngkin has raised came from his own fortune. In addition to the loans to his campaign, he’s contributed $1 million to Virginia Wins PAC, a political action committee he established in March. Forbes estimates Glenn Youngkin has a net worth of more than $440 million, largely thanks to his roughly 2% stake in Carlyle, which he left in September 2020 to run for office. That means he’s spent about 4% of his fortune over the ten months of the campaign so far.
For more on Glenn Youngkin’s net worth, read this story:
While McAuliffe—who already served one term as the state’s governor, from 2014 to 2018—isn’t nearly as wealthy as Youngkin, he’s been able to count on a number of deep-pocketed donors who have provided much-needed support. Over the most recent campaign filing period starting on September 1 and ending on September 30, McAuliffe received donations from two billionaires—$100,000 apiece from London-based U.S.investor Ron Burkle and Chicago-based gambling and real estate tycoon Neil Bluhm. Bluhm and a spokesperson for Burkle did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The $1.2 million McAuliffe has raised from billionaires since January makes up about 3% of his overall funding. Youngkin received the support of only one billionaire or billionaire spouse in the latest filing period: Linda McMahon—the former head of the Small Business Administration under Donald Trump, and the wife of World Wrestling Entertainment’s billionaire chairman Vincent McMahon—who donated $10,000. That brought Youngkin’s overall donations from billionaires and spouses to $280,000, less than 1% of his total haul. (He did receive contributions from two notable Republicans: former Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler and Anthony Scaramucci, the Trump administration’s short-lived communications director, who each gave $10,000.)
Both candidates have also sought funding through outside political action committees, or PACs. Youngkin’s Virginia Wins PAC has collected just over $1 million in donations—nearly all of it from $1 million in contributions by Youngkin himself. Common Good Virginia, a PAC set up by McAuliffe in 2014 when he was governor, raised nearly $400,000 in 2021, with no donations from billionaires.
McAuliffe still has time to tap his rolodex for more ultra-wealthy donors he’s raised money from in the past: Several billionaires, including Hyatt hotels heir and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, Washington Football Team owner Dan Snyder and former Estée Lauder chairman Leonard Lauder, made five- or six-figure donations to Common Good between 2014 and 2015. With the two candidates separated by a few percentage points in the polls and less than $2 million in the fundraising race, any extra support could be crucial in the closing weeks of the campaign ahead of the November 2 election.