February 1, 2016

Big Donors Have Fled Jeb Bush’s Super-PAC

This doesn’t bode well.

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

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This summer, Jeb Bush’s warchest seemed unbeatable. In July, the pro-Bush super-PAC, Right to Rise, announced a record haul of $103 million. Bush insiders said at the time that this staggering total was meant to “shock and awe” the former Florida governor’s competitors and pressure uncommitted donors to either climb on the bandwagon or stay the hell out of the way. Now it’s Right to Rise’s fundraisers who must be feeling shocked and awed: According to just-released disclosures, they managed to raise just $15.1 million during the second half of the year, as Bush fell from presumptive favorite to Donald Trump’s favorite punching bag.

In July, when the super-PAC’s first-half numbers were released, we counted at least 23 donors who gave $1 million or more to Right to Rise. This time, there was just one donor who gave more than $500,000—former AIG chairman and CEO, Hank Greenberg, who donated a whopping $10 million. And where during the first half of the year Right to Rise had 9,400 donors, it reported just 155 contributors in its latest disclosure.

Last spring, the super-PAC was so worried about appearing elitist and hurting Bush’s “man-of-the-people” image that it instructed donors to hold off on making any donations larger than $1 million. According to its latest filing, the super-PAC still has $54 million in cash (after having blown more than $58 million), but still, Right to Rise officials must be regretting that decision now.

 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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