After dropping $100 million trying unsuccessfully to get herself elected to the Senate, wrestling executive Linda McMahon is trying a new experiment: spending big bucks on other people’s campaigns.
McMahon, whose status as the founder of the WWE pro wrestling franchise made her an irresistible subject for the national media and a rich political target for her Democratic opponents, has reemerged in the world of Republican high-dollar fundraising. Having made hundreds of millions of dollars heading an overwhelmingly male entertainment operation, McMahon is now a rare new female player in the male-dominated world of billionaire political kingpins.
In 2014, McMahon and her husband, WWE CEO Vince McMahon, have already contributed about $1 million to federal candidates, party committees and super PACs, including Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, the research and tracking group America Rising and TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts’ group Ending Spending, according to a review of public finance records.
McMahon associates don’t expect her to throw as much money into politics as the free-spending Koch brothers or environmentalist Tom Steyer, who have single-handedly funded big, national advocacy groups on the right and left. But the million-dollar donation figure – coming largely in Linda McMahon’s name – is a dramatic uptick in the Connecticut Republican’s giving. Before Linda McMahon entered the political fray herself as a Senate candidate in 2010, the most she and her husband had given to political campaigns was about $30,000 in both 2008 and 2006.
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