More than one-third of all real estate investors make more than $75,000 a year. But for Thomas Barrack Jr., that is only a small percentage of what he is worth.
Barrack is a billionaire private real estate investor who has recently raised $32 million dollars in order to form a super Political Action Committee (PAC) to support presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
A super PAC is an independent organization where any corporation or individual can donate an unlimited amount of funds in order to help a presidential candidate win their race. These became the popular technique of fundraising after traditional PACs became less regulated in 2010.
The super PAC, called Rebuilding America Now, managed to raise their funds with only a handful of donors. This new group would be the third major Super PAC to back Trump in this election season.
As reported in The Wall Street Journal, Barrack told CNN he believes that the donors who originally vowed never to support Trump are changing their minds. He explained the process:
“What they’ve been waiting for is this idea of, Is Donald going to act more presidential? And as time goes on, and they have more faith in the fact that he’s making good judgments, and they become more furious with the establishment, which is really the key here, they become committed.”
But the creation of Rebuilding America Now could cause some tension between the PACs backing Trump. As Barrack is a longtime friend of Trump, this super PAC threatens the current leading campaign PAC, Great America.
Even though Trump has yet to publicly endorse any of his PACs, they still try to vie for the position as top contributor to the campaign. PACs are able to raise contributions without monetary caps but are forbidden from coordinating with each other on strategy plans.
As of time of publication, 15 PACs both big and small endorse Trump.