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View Winners → Politics Mar 03, 2021
Gov. Gavin Newsom makes an appearance and gives a press conference at Barron Park Elementary School on Tuesday, March 2, 2021, in Palo Alto, Calif.Jim Gensheimer / Special to The Chronicle
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Conservative fundraising arms. Big tech venture capitalists. Real estate investors. And a whole lot of retirees. Organizers of the campaign to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom have boasted that the effort is fueled by grassroots supporters angry about pandemic restrictions and the governor’s attendance at a dinner party that defied his own administration’s guidelines.
But the financial engine of the recall campaign has been less populist and largely driven by mega-donors writing six-figure checks. Of the nearly $4 million that recall organizers say they have raised, more than half has come from two dozen contributors — wealthy individuals, deep-pocketed companies and Republican groups. Large contributions poured in over the last three months as the recall effort became a statewide and national Republican cause célèbre, boosted by regular segments on Fox News and other conservative outlets.
The effort received $185,000 from the California Republican Party after it got a cash infusion from the National Republican Committee ; $109,000 from the Lincoln Club of Orange County, a prominent GOP group; and $100,000 from Huck PAC, the committee for Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas Republican governor and current commentator. Dan Newman, a consultant for Newsom’s planned 2022 re-election campaign, said the contributions show […]
