Amelia Pollard and Michael Taffe in New York and Alex Rogers in Washington Published November 5 2026 Wall Street billionaires who threw their fortunes behind Republicans suffered a crushing defeat, raising questions about the ultra-wealthy's ability to sway elections. Hedge fund managers and other major investors — including longtime Republican donors Paul Singer and Ken Griffin — collectively spent more than $330mn on the US midterm elections, as they pushed for Republicans to hold control of Congress. Many of the candidates they backed were in favour of low taxes, scant regulation and supporting Israel.
Democrats retaking control of the House and Senate on Tuesday night served as a rebuke against the preferences of US mega-donors, who had largely thrown their weight behind conservative candidates. Sixteen of the country's 20 biggest donors backed conservative candidates. Among the largest recipients of hedge fund money was the Senate Leadership Fund, which received cheques for $17mn from Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, $14.5mn from Singer, $10mn from Griffin, and $1mn from Apollo CEO Marc Rowan.
The Republican Senate fund directed over a third of its $463mn spent across the country through Oct. 15 to support Ken Paxton, who lost the Texas Senate race by over 12 points. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz additionally contributed $12mn to Maga Inc, Donald Trump's personal political spending committee which directed much of its funds to support Paxton. Schwarzman additionally contributed $10mn to the president's Super Pac.
GOP strategists said the staggering losses, including in states with historic Republican strongholds such as Kansas and South Carolina, could force wealthy backers to reassess how they deploy money in the next election.
Source: Financial Times Companies · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing