Funding Rand Paul's Political Career

In this posting, I will look at the career political spending and fundraising by Rand Paul, the most recent Republican Party Candidate for the 2016 election cycle.  The 52 year old high profile Republican Senator from Kentucky and son of libertarian two-time presidential candidate Ron Paul, was first elected to the Senate in 2010.   Please note that all data is current to the end of December 2014.

Let's start by looking at a comparison of what Rand Paul raised and spent to get elected for the first time in 2010 compared to what his opponent, Jack Conway spent:

Over his five year plus career, Rand Paul has raised a total of $14.009 million and has spent $11.112 million on getting into office.  Over the period from 2009 to 2014, here is a table showing his top contributors:

It is important to note that the organizations in this list did not donate to Mr. Paul's campaign, rather, the funds raised were sourced from the organization's PACs, their individual members, employees and owners and the families of those individuals.

Let's look at his largest career contributor, Club for Growth.  Club for Growth which was founded in 1999 describes itself as a:

 "...national network of over 100,000 pro-growth, limited government Americans who share in the belief that prosperity and opportunity come from economic freedom...the Club for Growth is the only organization that is willing and able to take on any Member of Congress on policy who fails to uphold basic economic conservative principles...regardless of party."  

The Club's current President is David McIntosh, the former Congressman who represented Indiana's 2nd Congressional District from 1995 to 2001 and a law graduate from the University of Chicago Law School.  Open Secrets considers Club for Growth to be a "heavy hitter"; in the 2014 cycle, the Club contributed $3,128,688 to candidates that shared its vision as shown on this table of its top recipients:

Mr. Paul's second largest career contributor is Mason Capital Management.  Mason is a privately-owend hedge fund which invests in the equity and hedging markets of the United States.  Rand Paul was its largest individual recipient in the 2014 cycle as shown on this table:

Here is a table showing the top industries that funded Mr. Paul's campaigns since 2009 and the amount that each industry contributed:

Here is an interesting bar graph showing the totals that Rand Paul raised in the 2010, 2012 and 2014 election cycles in dark green and comparing his totals raised to that of the average Senate member:

Here is a table that shows the top metropolitan areas that contributed to Mr. Paul's political career:

Not surprisingly, most of his contributions are sourced from his home state, Kentucky.

While it is not surprising given that Mr. Rand is an ophthalmologist, it is interesting to see how much financial support he had received over his political career from the health care sector.  Given his medical background, it will be interesting to see how he handles the very thorny issue of Obamacare as the campaign unwinds, particularly given the health sector's generous contributions to his two campaigns.