Isaac Brekken / AP
Robert Bigelow, a billionaire aerospace entrepreneur and owner of an extended-stay chain of hotels, is pictured in North Las Vegas on April 29, 2010. This election cycle, Bigelow has put more than $47 million into backing Republican causes and candidates, including Joe Lombardo’s run for Nevada governor.
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Nevada billionaire Robert Bigelow’s political contributions to support Republicans in Nevada might easily amount to record spending in a statewide race, experts say. Beyond his unprecedented Nevada spending, his cumulative spending pins the entrepreneur among the biggest individual donors in the country, according to a review of federal campaign finance data.
Indeed, Bigelow’s spending in Nevada alone rivals that of major national contributions by others and is larger than many prominent political action committee (PAC) budgets for the entire country.
While all campaign finance experts contacted by the Sun explained it was difficult to get a complete picture of statewide political donations across the country, none of the experts could provide examples of any single donor spending more in a statewide race anywhere in the country in recent years. Nor could they cite a precedent for a single donor operating on this scale in a state race.
In addition, because Nevada has a relatively small population, Bigelow’s per capita spending to affect the outcome of the state’s election is vastly higher than any national PAC spending in this campaign cycle.
The Sun reported Monday that Bigelow — owner of the extended-stay hotel chain Budget Suites of America and Bigelow Aerospace — has donated at least $47 million, overwhelmingly to Republican causes, so far this election cycle (there are 11 days to go before the Nov. 8 midterm elections). That amount is vastly larger than other estimates of his spending that rely solely on figures provided by the Federal Election Commission for federal races. Those tallies do not include donations to local candidates or statewide PACs. PACs do not coordinate directly with a particular campaign but provide assistance in the form of advertising or other related activity.
The 78-year-old Bigelow has donated about $25 million to causes supporting Joe Lombardo, the Republican candidate for Nevada governor. Nearly half of Bigelow’s donations went to the powerful Republican Governors Association (RGA), which channeled Bigelow’s money right back into Nevada for Lombardo. In addition, Bigelow gave heavily to two statewide political action committees backing the outgoing Clark County sheriff. That’s on top of $190,000 in direct contributions made on behalf of Bigelow himself and several of his corporate entities.
Bigelow himself has given the RGA $9.3 million this cycle. Those funds were augmented by a Bigelow-owned company called Sedona Magnet LLC, which donated $3 million in late June, according to an IRS filing from the RGA. Bigelow and his companies have also donated $7.6 million and $5.7 million, respectively, to statewide PACs Better Nevada and Stronger Nevada, which have purchased pro-Lombardo campaign ads and have donated $20,000 to Lombardo’s legal defense team.
OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks spending on political campaigns, ranks Bigelow as No. 22 among top individual federal contributors this election cycle. Its list, topped by Democratic megadonor George Soros, compiles Federal Election Commission data and features other big local spenders like Las Vegas Sands heiress Miriam Adelson (No. 17; $15 million contributed) and former casino mogul Steve Wynn (No. 19; $14.3 million). Soros has given $128.5 million.
A similar list of top political donors this year published by The Washington Post ranks Bigelow No. 33 with $11 million spent.
A spokesperson for Bigelow did not return a phone call for comment.
The lists published by OpenSecrets and the Post compiled their totals using FEC data, and do not appear to account for spending disclosed in the RGA’s IRS filing or calculate totals going toward statewide races. That makes it hard to say for certain if the $26.4 million spent in Nevada races amounts to any record, said Pete Quist, deputy research director at OpenSecrets.
Bigelow has also given to conservative national PACs like Morning in America, All For Our Country and Club For Growth Action, accounting for another $10 million. He also gave $10 millions to Friends of Ron DeSantis, a PAC backed by the conservative Florida governor whom Bigelow has likened to a modern-day Ronald Reagan.
Taking the above donations into account, Bigelow’s $47 million given this cycle rivals national spending groups like One Nation and American Action Network — two conservative PACs that have spent $53.5 million and $47.1 million, respectively, the largest of any independent groups this cycle, according to the Post’s calculations.
OpenSecrets only collects independent spending totals (meaning outside groups like PACs) in about half of U.S. states, Quist said. But even then, not all PAC spending is subject to reporting, meaning many donations can come from ambiguous sources.
“There are a number of caveats that make it impossible to know what the record may be,” Quist said. “First, funding of independent spending groups is often very opaque. Larger individual contributions could exist in the form of funding of dark money groups whose donors we cannot see.
Bigelow has donated about $600,000 this cycle to the National Republican Congressional Committee, Republican Senate Campaign Committee and other groups that support the GOP regaining the majority in the U.S. House and Senate. Like Bigelow’s RGA contributions, most of the money he contributed to the GOP’s Senate and House campaign arms appears to have been channeled right back into Nevada.
The RGA and those PACs in turn are running attack ads in Nevada against Sisolak, Democratic U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and the three Democratic congressional representatives in Nevada: Steve Horsford, Susie Lee and Dina Titus, all of whom are up for reelection this year.
It’s likely that Adelson, together with her late husband Sheldon Adelson, who died in 2021, are the biggest political spenders to hail from Nevada, but they have historically stuck to the national landscape, UNLV political science professor Ken Miller said. The Adelsons were the top donors to former President Donald Trump during his 2016 bid, and donated $172 million for the 2020 cycle, according to OpenSecrets.
Still, Miller said, it’s impossible to know for sure if Bigelow’s spending on Lombardo, albeit large, amounts to an all-time high.
“To find the answer, you need to consider direct individual donations, donations run through LLCs as Bigelow has done this year, plus donations to PACs that have very different reporting deadlines and donation caps,” Miller said via email.
