“Republicans aren’t seeing as many big checks from one of their most generous benefactors, creating a financial hole for the GOP just as Democrats get a fundraising windfall tied to abortion,” Bloomberg reports.

“Miriam Adelson along with her late husband Sheldon Adelson were the party’s biggest donors over the past decade. But her only major contribution in the current election cycle is the $5 million she donated in July to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC that backs House GOP candidates.”

New York Times: “The fund-raising has occurred despite the longstanding executive order — reissued by Ms. Hochul on her first day in office — that prohibits such transactions in order to avoid even the appearance of rewarding donors with jobs in exchange for contributions.”

“Ms. Hochul’s campaign said it was appropriate to accept the contributions because they came from people appointed by her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo. The argument underscored a loophole in the ethics order that would seem to allow one governor to accept money from another governor’s board and commission appointees.”

“In some cases, Ms. Hochul received donations from people Mr. Cuomo had appointed and then gave them new appointments.”

NPR: “Regulations from the Federal Election Commission and experts on finance law say that there are almost no restrictions on how Trump spends the PAC money while he is not a candidate for president. However, the money raised can’t be used for a potential 2024 campaign if Trump decides he’ll run again, experts say.”

“But Trump doesn’t exactly have a history of following FEC guidelines, and there hasn’t been much enforcement despite dozens of campaign finance complaints.”

“Since 2016, there have been upward of 40 complaints against the former president — the FEC hasn’t acted on any of them, including the case of Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen paying off Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election. It’s bringing up questions on whether Trump could be held accountable for any potential violations in the future.”

“Donald Trump’s super PAC is hosting a candlelight dinner with the former president at one of his New Jersey golf courses next month,” Forbes reports.

“The price to attend: $100,000 per person.”

“A new conservative nonprofit group scored a $1.6 billion windfall last year via a little-known donor — an extraordinary sum that could give Republicans and their causes a huge financial boost ahead of the midterms, and for years to come,” the New York Times reports.

“The source of the money was Barre Seid, an electronics manufacturing mogul, and the donation is among the largest — if not the largest — single contributions ever made to a politically focused nonprofit. The beneficiary is a new political group controlled by Leonard A. Leo, an activist who has used his connections to Republican donors and politicians to help engineer the conservative dominance of the Supreme Court and to finance battles over abortion rights, voting rules and climate change policy.”

“This windfall will help cement Mr. Leo’s status as a kingmaker in conservative big money politics. It could also give conservatives an advantage in a type of difficult-to-trace spending that shapes elections and political fights.”

A pair of unusual campaign finance reports this week reveal that since 2019, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) “has personally invested a total of $817,000 into his campaign, while recovering only $261,000 of that amount,” the Daily Beast reports.

“That leaves him personally in the hole $556,000, more than three times the annual congressional salary of $174,000.”

Karl Rove: “So what can Mr. Trump use his existing cash stash for? Well, financially supporting other candidates, but he hasn’t shown much interest in that so far. Save America, the former president’s leadership PAC, has given $5,000 each—the maximum by law—to 60 House and 13 Senate candidates. This $365,000 is a pittance, and it’s impossible for him to use up Save America’s remaining $103.1 million this year simply with direct contributions. If Republicans were running candidates for every House and Senate seat this year and Mr. Trump gave each $5,000, that would amount to only $2.35 million.”

“One way to use more of this money is through independent expenditures on behalf of candidates, but Mr. Trump hasn’t devoted much cash to that either.”

“The numbers are in and it’s official: The attack on Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D) backfired,” Politico reports.

“The Michigan Republican state senator who falsely described McMorrow as a ‘groomer’ in an April fundraising email raised less than $300 in the days following the solicitation, according to campaign finance filings. McMorrow, on the other hand, raised more than $1 million.”

A new CNN documentary traced the money trail between a small group of Texas billionaires and the state’s far-right political shift — and discovered how two billionaires gave about two-thirds of the Super PAC funding that backed Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) 2016 presidential campaign.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) once demanded “fiscal responsibility” as a 2012 presidential candidate, arguing that America needs a leader prepared to make “tough choices” on spending, Insider reports.

Ten years later, Santorum’s 2012 and 2016 presidential campaign committees both remain deep in debt, owing creditors a combined total of $1 million.

“Donald Trump never stopped raising funds from his supporters after the 2020 presidential race,” Forbes reports.

“His companies, meanwhile, continued to charge his political outfits for goods and services. As a result, the former president has been able to convert about $1.3 million of donor money into business revenue since he lost the 2020 election.”

Jonathan Bernstein: “We’re living through an era of campaign finance abundance, even though most of the prevailing ideas about money in politics come from an era of scarcity. Loosened laws and regulations have brought big new sources of money — some disclosed, some not — into play. Technological change combined with partisan polarization has produced the phenomenon of big little money — millions of dollars raised in small increments, mostly apparently given by party-loyal voters responding to partisan cues.”

“Overall, there’s just a flood of money. Spending on federal elections alone in 2020 more than doubled the previous record; in fact, there was about as much spent on House and Senate campaigns in 2020 as there was spent on House, Senate and presidential elections combined in 2016.”

“What this means is that virtually every serious candidate in a competitive general election for the House of Representatives, Senate, or a governor’s office will be adequately funded.”

“The Supreme Court has boosted high-dollar donors’ abilities to personally enrich candidates — including ones like the wealthy individuals pouring millions into their own campaigns this year — if they prevail on Election Day,” Axios reports.

“The court’s ruling Monday is one more decision bypassing post-Watergate and other campaign finance restrictions.”

“The Federal Election Commission has decided not to take action against former President Donald Trump after commissioners deadlocked over whether his campaign broke the law by masking how it was spending cash during the 2020 campaign,” the AP reports.