Fueled by Billionaires, Political Spending Shatters Records Again

But Mr. Bankman-Fried’s biggest giving, at least $27 million, went to Protect Our Future PAC, ostensibly devoted to backing candidates who would champion pandemic protection. It in turn sank more than $11 million on a failed Democratic primary candidate in Oregon, Carrick Flynn, as well as other primary efforts in solid Democratic districts.

Unlike Republican megadonors, Mr. Bankman-Fried is also trying to maintain relations in both parties, giving at least $45,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee and thousands more to Republican senators like Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, John Boozman of Arkansas, Susan Collins of Maine and John Hoeven of North Dakota.

Rounding out the top 10 donors of the 2022 midterms are Stephen A. Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group, a giant investment firm; Peter Thiel, the technology investor who personally bankrolled the Senate campaigns of two protégés, J.D. Vance in Ohio and Blake Masters in Arizona; Fred Eychaner, a media executive and major Democratic donor; and Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of the software giant Oracle, who channeled millions of dollars into Republican campaigns through the super PAC Opportunity Matters.

Only Mr. Griffin returned requests for comment among the top 10 donors.

Campaign finance numbers are notoriously difficult to track precisely. An adviser to former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York said his total giving for Democrats for the 2022 cycle was around $70 million, which would put him near the top of the list. But because Mr. Bloomberg saw threats to democracy concentrated at the state level, his donations have focused on races for governor and secretary of state in battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada. Those contributions do not appear in the federal campaign database.

Indeed, none of the figures tabulated by The New York Times or Open Secrets can be considered complete; all of them are likely to underestimate total contributions. That is because a complicated shell game — giving to political organizations that in turn give to other political organizations — masks exactly who is giving how much to whom.

Since some of those organizations are considered tax-exempt “social welfare” organizations — groups organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code — they may never disclose their donors. And because much of the spending is on highly targeted online advertising that is far less regulated than television ads, total spending may be impossible to determine, Ms. Krumholz said.

For a state like Wisconsin, where two megadonors, Mr. Uihlein and Diane Hendricks of Hendricks Holding Company, are spending heavily to re-elect Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, and oust Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, voters may feel besieged by impenetrable political forces, said Eleanor Neff Powell, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin.