‘This Is The Oligarchy’: Nearly $100 Billion Funds Susan Collins’ Re-election Bid
Yves here. Needless to say, they aren’t even close to the 100 million voters in Maine.
The obsession with Graham Platner is telling.
By Jake Johnson, senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams. Originally published on Common Dreams
A new analysis of campaign finance data shows that nearly 100 billionaires and their spouses have contributed to Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ re-election bid so far, including nearly $10 million to the incumbent’s campaign committee and PACs supporting her effort to fend off ongoing challenger Graham Platner.
The Maine Monitor on Thursday published a list of billionaires who donated to Collins and Platner, who called his Republican opponent a “corrupt” patron and a beneficiary of the oligarchic political system. The agency noted that Collins’ $1 billion donation total “stands in stark contrast to the fundraising of his opponent…whose campaign attracted much less money but from more people.”
The $9.8 million that Collins’ fundraising network received from billionaires and their spouses between January 2025 and the end of May 2026 represented “one-third of what Collins’ supporters have raised from all donors,” according to a Maine Monitor analysis.
Platner’s re-election bid received donations from billionaires George Soros, Pat Stryker, Jon Stryker, Christy Walton, and Jennifer Pritzker. Those donations represent “about 1% of his net worth,” notes the Maine Monitor. The Democratic Party’s campaign said Thursday that “grassroots donors making $200 or less gave Graham Platner $9.6 million.”
“While Susan Collins’ campaign is supported by billionaire donors, our campaign is built on a crowd-funded organization, with an average donation of $26,” said Ben Chin, Platner’s campaign manager, in a statement. “The Center can deliver this—the overwhelming will of Mainers, 15,000+ volunteers, and a campaign funded by small-dollar donors from nearly every zip code in Maine.”
Collins’ biggest donor so far comes from Ken Griffin, a hedge fund manager who has contributed $2.5 million to Pine Tree Results, a Super PAC supporting the five-year Republican incumbent. Collins’ network also received at least $1 million from Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, New Balance chairman James Davis, and hedge fund manager Paul Singer.
this is an oligarchy – pass it on pic.twitter.com/hU3nsRx9w4
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) June 12, 2026
The Maine Monitor noted that “most of the billionaire donations to Collins this cycle came from billionaires who made their money in other investments, including hedge funds and private equity.”
In 2017, Collins voted for legislation that would bring massive tax breaks to America’s biggest corporations and billionaires, whose combined wealth rose to $8.1 trillion last year. ProPublica reported that private equity became a “reliable source of donations” for Collins after he withdrew a 2017 legislative amendment that would have targeted one of the industry’s most popular tax breaks.
In addition to billions in funding, Collins’ campaign has benefited from massive ad spending by deep-pocketed groups such as One Nation. The group, along with Sen. Mitch McConnell, has spent more than $19 million on Collins’ campaign so far.
