The Center for Public Integrity

Thanks to a small number of wealthy individuals, the outside spending groups known as “super PACs” that are working to put the four leading GOP candidates in the White House collectively raised more than the candidates themselves in January.

Candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul raised a combined $21.1 million for the month, according to Federal Election Commission records, while the four primary super PACs backing them raised $22.1 million.

Donors to candidates number in the thousands, but they may only give $2,500 per candidate, per election. Super PAC donors, thanks to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and a lower-cour ruling, can give unlimited amounts. The funds can come from billionaires, corporations and labor unions. So far this election, the funds have been spent overwhelmingly on advertising disparaging competing candidates.

Super PACs are prohibited from coordinating their activities with the candidates.

The average donation to a super PAC filing in January was $63,000, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of FEC data.

Two of the super PACs — “Winning Our Future,” supporting Newt Gingrich and “Endorse Liberty,” supporting Ron Paul — are dominated by a single donor.

Of the $11 million Winning Our Future raised in January, $10 million — about 90 percent of the total for the month — came from billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson and his wife. That’s in addition to $1 million given by other Adelson family members to the PAC last year.

A Louisiana energy executive has made a $1 million contribution to a super PAC supporting the surging campaign of Rick Santorum, according to disclosure records released Monday.

The donation came from William J. Dore of Louisiana, president of Dore Energy Corp. Dore’s contribution accounted for about half of the $2.1 million the “Red White and Blue Fund” raised for the month of January — that’s nearly triple the $730,000 it had raised through December.

The PAC also continued to rely heavily on checks from multimillionaire and retired mutual fund executive Foster Friess, a Wyoming-based, born-again Christian. Friess donated $669,000 in January and $331,000 in 2011, making his total donations an even $1 million.

The two men account for 71 percent of the contributions to the super PAC.

Dore of Lake Charles, La., is winner of the 2011 Horatio Alger Norman Vincent Peale Award, according to the Horatio Alger Association website. The award is given to those who have made “exceptional humanitarian contributions to society.”

Friess of late has conducted a one-man media blitz with numerous broadcast and print outlets touting Santorum’s conservative credentials. But his freewheeling style with the media drew some criticism when he remarked jokingly last week in an interview with MSNBC that “… back in my days, they’d use Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees …”

After the comments sparked a backlash, Friess apologized in a blog post.

Casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson and his family have pumped $11 million into the pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC “Winning Our Future,” about 84 percent of the $13.1 million the group has raised so far.

And that doesn’t include the additional $10 million sources say the multibillionaire is expected to kick in to help his political ally and friend Gingrich become competitive again. Gingrich has fallen behind the two frontrunners, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and ex-Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, in national polls.

The PAC’s new filing with the Federal Election Commission shows two separate $5 million donations were made last month by Adelson and wife Miriam, an Israeli-born physician with dual citizenship. Another $1 million was donated in December to the super PAC by three relatives of the Adelsons, bringing the total family contribution to $11 million.

Without the Adelsons’ largesse, the PAC has raised $2.1 million.

The PAC’s latest filing shows the next largest donation in January came from Texas mega-GOP donor Harold Simmons, who gave $500,000, bringing his total contributions to the super PAC to $1 million.

Together, the Adelson family donations have been the largest publicly reported to a presidential super PAC thus far this election cycle. They have been used to pay for a mix of negative television advertisements against Romney and positive ads to promote Gingrich.

Those donations, respectively, helped to fund hard-hitting and expensive advertising drives before the South Carolina primary — which Gingrich won — and the Florida primary, which he lost, and where he was badly outspent by the Romney campaign and the “Restore Our Future” super PAC supporting him.

The super PAC that has played a pivotal role in keeping Mitt Romney's presidential campaign going raised an impressive $6.6 million in January, bumping its total haul to $36.8 million since its founding last year.

"Restore our Future" has raised six- and seven-figure donations from a relatively small number of wealthy donors, including a large contingent of hedge fund managers and executives from private equity companies such as Bain Capital, Romney's former employer.

There were no seven-figure donations in January, but 25 people gave $100,000 or more, according to a Federal Election Commission disclosure filing released Monday. Three wealthy donors gave $500,000 in January: Joseph Craft, president and CEO of Alliance Coal; Bruce Kovner of Caxton Alternative Management LP; And David Lisonbee, CEO of 4Life Research LLC.

Caxton is a multibilion-dollar hedge fund founded by Kovner; 4Life Research is a Sandy, Utah-based company that sells immune system support and anti-aging supplements among other products.

Among other top donors in January, renowned hoteliers J.W. and Richard Marriott, who are long-time supporters of Romney. Combined, the two gave  $500,000 to go with $500,000 they gave in 2011, bringing their total contributions to the super PAC to $1 million. Retired hedge fund manager Julian Robertson of Tiger Management LLC gave $250,000 to go with the $1 million he gave last year, making him the PAC's top donor.

Billionaire hedge fund manager, David Tepper, president of Appaloosa Management LLC, gave $375,000 in January.

Texas congressman Ron Paul may be running in fourth place in the most recent national polls for the Republican presidential nomination, but he's first in the heart of PayPal founder and hedge fund manager Peter Thiel.

With a $1.7 million donation in January added to the $900,000 he's already given, Thiel is responsible for 76 percent of Endorse Liberty's $3.4 million in total receipts, according to Federal Election Commission disclosure records released Monday.

In 1998, Thiel was a co-founder of PayPal, the online payment service that revolutionized the way commerce is conducted online. EBay Inc., the Internet auction service, bought PayPal for $1.5 billion in Ocotober 2002, making the technology pioneer a very wealthy man.

Thiel, 44, a former securities lawyer and self-described Libertarian, blames regulation for hurting innovation, a view that dovetails with Paul's platform. Thiel founded hedge fund Clarium Capital Management LLC in 2002.

Endorse Liberty was created by three young businessmen and one seasoned corporate veteran. Abe Niederhauser and Jeffrey Harmon both work in the marketing department at the bad-breath-combating company Orabrush, and they’ve taken the company’s bold, youthful marketing strategy and applied it to their endorsements of Ron Paul.

Ladd Christensen, who like Niederhauser and Harmon is a Utah resident, has ties to the Huntsman Corp., founded by Jon M. Huntsman, Sr., father of Jon Jr., who dropped out of the race.

Another $10 million donation is expected to arrive within days from casino owner Sheldon Adelson to the outside group that’s provided life support to Newt Gingrich’s beleaguered presidential campaign, say fundraisers with ties to the multibillionaire.

The $10 million infusion from Adelson would bring total donations from Adelson and family to the pro-Gingrich super PAC “Winning Our Future” to a stunning $21 million, far more than any super PAC donor has given to date.

The funds are expected to arrive in the next week to 10 days and help fuel a multimillion-dollar television advertising blast prior to super Tuesday, March 6, when 10 states conduct GOP primaries.

One fundraiser, who has spoken with Adelson in the last week, told iWatch News that the wealthy supporter of Jewish causes indicated to him that he is still committed to keeping Gingrich in the race.

It is unclear whether the pro-Gingrich PAC’s ads will attack frontrunners former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum or burnish Gingrich’s conservative image and record — or both.

Rick Tyler, a senior advisor to the super PAC, declined to comment about any further donations coming from Adelson. Tyler told iWatch News that he was “optimistic” that the super PAC would be able to run an advertising campaign prior to super Tuesday, but “to be effective, we would need a significant infusion of cash.”

Ron Reese, a spokesman for Adelson declined to comment, but noted that speculation and rumors have been rampant about additional funding. Close associates of Adelson in Las Vegas remain tight lipped about any plans to send millions more to Winning Our Future. Adelson owns the Las Vegas Sands and is worth an estimated $21.5 billion. He is currently in Israel attending his son’s bar mitzvah.

The Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News is offering a variety of ways to follow the money this election cycle, particularly the flood of funds that have come in the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizen United decision. 

• Get breaking news from iWatch staff on Twitter at @iWatch and follow politics reporters Michael Beckel at @mjbeckel, Aaron Mehta at @AaronMehta, and engagement editor Cole Goins at @colegoins. 
• Check out our Tumblr blog, maintained with the Center for Responsive Politics, to keep an eye on the flow of money in the 2012 elections. 
• And read substantive investigations into the presidential candidates and the elite donors to “super PACs” backing them at the Consider the Source project. 

With the GOP presidential nomination heading full bore toward the convention and key Democratic operatives scrambling to herd high-dollar donations to their super PACs, the race for outside money is all systems go.