Could Casino Moguls Donate as Trump Campaign Seeks $60M for Election Challenges?

Posted on: November 6, 2020, 07:34h. 

Last updated on: November 7, 2020, 04:29h.

Ed Silverstein @casinoorgedsilv Read More
Expertise: Legal, Tribal Gaming.

Donors reportedly are getting asked to contribute $60 million or more to pay for legal challenges by Donald Trump’s campaign to fight alleged “irregularities” in the recent vote for president. The request follows millions of dollars in donations already made to the campaign by casino moguls.

Trump’s campaign reportedly sent out emails and texts seeking donations
Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson listens to President Donald Trump. Adelson has donated millions of dollars to help the Trump campaign. The campaign is now looking for $60 million or more to cover the cost of legal challenges related to the recent election. (Image: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Since Tuesday’s election, Trump’s campaign sent out emails and texts seeking the $60 million in donations, Reuters reported Friday, based on interviews from two unnamed sources.

It is unclear which donors were contacted by the campaign. Among the prior major donors to Trump’s campaign and Republican causes are Las Vegas Sands Corporation mogul Sheldon Adelson, as well as Station Casinos’ brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta.

Adelson and his wife, Miriam, contributed $75 million in recent months to Preserve America, a super PAC that supports Trump’s re-election.

Adelson Known for Last-Minute Political Contributions

Last month, the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that follows campaign finance, speculated in an online report that the Adelsons “may pour even more money into the 2020 elections. In late October of 2016, they shelled out another $25 million in last-minute contributions.”

Sheldon and Miriam Adelson already set a record for political campaign donations from individuals in a single election cycle. They gave $172.7 million, the Center for Responsive Politics reported last month.

In total, the Adelsons will donate about $250 million to Trump’s campaign, as well as to Republican Senate and House members and other conservative causes during this election cycle, The Guardian, a UK-based newspaper, reported last Saturday.

When asked late Friday about possible donations from casino moguls for the Trump campaign’s legal fees, Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution think tank and a resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies based at the University of California, Berkeley, declined to speculate if the Adelsons could be among the likely donors.

If that money is intended to help Trump’s legal challenges to the election count, it would be a very bad bet,” Mann told Casino.org.

He added that Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania will likely be called for Biden “tonight or tomorrow morning.”

Alito Wants Late Ballots Segregated

Late Friday, US Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito temporarily ordered any ballots received after 8 pm on Election Day in Pennsylvania be segregated, Fox News said. If they are counted, they need to be counted separately, Alito added and the Washington Post further reported. Reponses to the order are due by Saturday afternoon.

Former Vice President Joe Biden was close to declaring victory on Friday, as his Electoral College vote totals moved closer to 270, the news media reported. Trump and his allies have questioned how votes were cast and counted in multiple states.

Republicans in Nevada are challenging in court what they claim are improper votes cast in Clark County, Nevada or elsewhere in the state. Thousands allegedly voted in Nevada while living in another state, the GOP claims. Dead people were also allegedly counted among those who cast votes.