ATLANTA — The price of everything has been rising, including the cost of becoming governor in Georgia.
Since Aug. 1, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and businessman Rick Jackson raised more than $150 million in their quests to lead the state.
Jackson, the Republican nominee, took in the vast majority of that total.
Between his two committees, after accounting for transfers between them, Jackson raised at least $120 million, about four times as much as Bottoms, the Democratic nominee, who gathered more than $30 million.
Those figures include the near daily reports of new money their committees filed after the last major disclosure period ended on Oct. 20, with Jackson raising more than $8 million since then and Bottoms more than $7 million.
Regular gubernatorial campaign committees can collect a maximum of $8,400 from each donor per election. But Bottoms and Jackson were able to blow well past that limit because of the special status Georgia lawmakers have given certain candidates.
Gubernatorial nominees can set up “leadership” committees, which can raise unlimited sums.
Since Aug. 1, the Democratic Governors Association has given Bottoms’ leadership committee more than $14 million.
Wealthy individuals also chipped in.
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg gave her $4 million, more than half of it last week. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker sent her $1 million the week before that. Emmitt Perry, a self-employed filmmaker in Atlanta, gave her $250,000 in early October. (Tyler Perry is also known as Emmitt Perry Jr.) And Rory Gates, listed in Bottoms’ campaign finance report as a Senate analyst in Washington, D.C., gave her $100,000 in mid-October, using the address of a UPS store there. (One of Bill and Melinda Gates’ children is named Rory, who, according to Inside Political Money and The New York Times, has a history of supporting Democratic candidates.)
Since Aug. 1, the Republican Governors Association has given Jackson’s leadership committee more than $12 million, sending $1 million of it last week.
Jackson also got a boost from well-heeled individuals.
Jeffrey Sprecher, chairman of Intercontinental Exchange in Atlanta, gave Jackson’s leadership committee $150,000 in the past two months. (Greater Georgia Action, a political action committee founded by former Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, Sprecher’s wife, gave $50,000 last week.) Jim Walton, chairman of Arvest Bank Group in Arkansas and a son of Walmart founder Sam Walton, gave Jackson’s leadership committee $100,000 in September. And on Oct. 5, Jackson’s leadership committee received $25,000 apiece from Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the New York financial managers who attended Harvard with Mark Zuckerberg and sued, alleging that he stole the idea for Facebook from them. (That dispute inspired the 2010 movie “The Social Network.”)
The vast majority of Jackson’s campaign money came from his personal wealth. After spending more than $100 million of his own money to win the Republican primary, Jackson plowed another $88 million into his general election campaign by the end of the Oct. 20 reporting period. Then, on Oct. 21, he upped the ante with another $4.5 million.
Had Jackson not dug into his own pockets, his two committees would have raised about as much as Bottoms’ two.
Jackson’s money came from fewer donors.
From Aug. 1 through Oct. 20, he had 80 contributions of $10 or less.
Bottoms had more than 74,000 such contributions.
Jackson’s campaign finance reports fill more than 200 pages with itemized contributions. Bottoms’ reports fill nearly 2,000 pages.
Her reports would have run much longer had she itemized all of the contributions. Her campaign committee disclosure for the period ending Oct. 20 reported that 98,098 contributions were not itemized, meaning the donor names were not included because the total each donor gave fell beneath the disclosure threshold.
About three out of four of Bottoms’ small itemized donors were from other states.
Donors from various industries gave sums that would have seemed large years ago. Jackson collected more than $300,000 from executives, doctors and others in healthcare (including from his own company, Jackson Healthcare) while Bottoms took in more than $100,000 from that sector.
They each received a $50,000 contribution from gambling interests, Jackson from a Texas company called Bad Dog Games and Bottoms from the PCI Gaming Authority in Alabama, the gambling arm of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.
Alcohol distributors gave Jackson more than $200,000, with Georgia Crown Distributing Co. giving $100,000 in August and a company employee giving another $100,000 in October. The chairman and CEO of United Distributors gave Jackson $25,000 in August.
Bottoms took in two $50,000 contributions in September from Loving Helping Hands Inc., which the Better Business Bureaucharacterizes as a home healthcare company. In October, Bottoms received $100,000 from the Working Families Advocacy Project in Washington, D.C. and $150,000 from the Augusta-based political action committee of the Southern Regional Council of Carpenters.
Both candidates drew money from educational groups. The Georgia Charter Action Fund PAC of Atlanta, which advocates for charter schools, gave Jackson’s leadership committee $100,000 in October. That month, the NEA Fund for Children and Public Education gave Bottoms’ leadership committee $200,000. The American Federation of Teachers gave her $50,000, last week.
Some donors gave to both candidates.
Altria Client Services in Virginia gave $100,000 to Jackson’s leadership committee on Sept. 17 and gave $25,000 to Bottoms’ leadership committee on Oct. 7.
Elevance Health Inc. in Ohio gave $50,000 to Jackson’s leadership committee on Sept. 9 and $25,000 to Bottoms’ leadership committee on Sept. 23.
Some smaller donors hedged their bets, too.
In September, The Southeast Permanente Medical Group in Atlanta gave the maximum $8,400 to the campaign committees for both Bottoms and Jackson. A 2nd Chance Bail Bonds in Marietta gave $5,000 to both campaigns that month.
And Ed Bastian, the CEO of Delta Air Lines, did not play favorites either.
On the same day, Oct. 5, he gave each campaign $2,500.