January 6, 2012: Casino Billionaire Donates $5 Million to Gingrich Campaign

Sheldon Adelson at a celebration of the opening of his Sands Cotai Central casino in Macau, April 2012. [Source: Aaron Tam / AFP / Getty Images / ProPublica]Casino owner Sheldon Adelson, one of America’s wealthiest individuals, gives $5 million to a super PAC acting on behalf of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. Adelson’s fortune comes from casinos he owns in Las Vegas and Asia. Adelson has let it be known that he intends to donate much more during the campaign season, both in the primaries and in the general election, when a Republican will challenge President Obama for the presidency. The Washington Post calls Adelson’s donation “the latest in an avalanche of campaign cash flooding the presidential season to independent groups known as super PACs.” Adelson donates the money to Winning Our Future, a super PAC whose predecessor, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), is plagued with allegations of misconduct and illicit involvement by Gingrich (see December 19, 2011). ASWF was also a benefactor of Adelson’s donations, both monetary and in Adelson’s permission for Gingrich to use his personal aircraft. According to a person close to Adelson, the billionaire is willing to spend at least $5 million more, either on Gingrich or the Republican nominee for president. The source adds that Adelson wants to keep Gingrich competitive in the primary race at least through the January 21 South Carolina primary. If Gingrich does well in South Carolina, as he is predicted to, the source says Gingrich’s super PAC may well receive another hefty donation. In December 2011, Adelson denied saying he planned on donating $20 million to the organization. Adelson and his wife Miriam have known Gingrich since the mid-1990s, when Adelson was locked in disputes with labor unions and government regulators over his construction of the massive Venetian casino in Las Vegas. Like Gingrich, Adelson is extremely conservative on the subject of Israel. Gingrich, buoyed with super PAC donations in recent weeks, did well in the Iowa caucuses (see January 3, 2012) against frontrunner Mitt Romney, whose own super PAC, Restore Our Future, has a stable of wealthy donors keeping pro-Romney and anti-Gingrich ads on the airwaves (see June 23, 2011 and January 3, 2012). Reportedly, Romney’s supporters begged Adelson not to make his contribution to Gingrich, and instead to let Gingrich’s campaign wither without Adelson’s support. Gingrich’s campaign intends to use much of the donation for airtime in South Carolina, and to air portions of a film documenting Romney’s time as CEO of Bain Capital, a private equity firm that oversaw the bankruptcy and dissolution of numerous small businesses and corporations. Gingrich claims Adelson is acting entirely on his own, saying, “If he wants to counterbalance Romney’s millionaires, I have no objection to him counterbalancing Romney’s millionaires.” [Washington Post, 1/7/2012; New York Times, 1/9/2012] Slate columnist Will Oremus observes: “There’s no question that Gingrich has been paid for by Sheldon Adelson. It’s up to voters to decide whether he’s been bought.” [Slate, 1/27/2012]