Augusta, Maine – In case you missed it, new reporting from the Maine Monitor reveals that nearly 100 billionaires and their spouses have poured almost $10 million into Susan Collins’ campaign since the start of 2025. Not a single one of those billionaire donors are Maine residents.

The reporting also highlights how Collins has used super PACs as a central part of her fundraising efforts – helping funnel millions of dollars from some of the wealthiest people in the world to support her campaign.

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The Maine Monitor: Nearly 100 billionaires and their spouses have donated to reelect Susan Collins

By Josh Keefe

June 11, 2026

• Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins announced her reelection campaign in February by posting a video that showed her opening a box of New Balance running shoes.

• “This is perfect for 2026,” she said to the camera as she held up a sneaker. “Because I’m running.”

• The video didn’t mention that New Balance’s owner and chairman, billionaire Jim Davis, gave $1 million to the super PAC supporting Collins’ campaign seven months prior. The company is based in Boston and has manufacturing facilities in Maine. It was one of four donations Davis made last year to the network of committees raising money for Collins.

• Davis, who is worth an estimated $6.1 billion, is one of at least 79 billionaires who donated to Collins’ network between January 2025 and May 20, 2026, according to a Maine Monitor analysis of Federal Election Commission campaign finance data. If billionaires’ spouses are included in the tally, the number rises to 97.

• Collectively, the group of nearly 100 billionaires and spouses has donated $9.8 million to the Collins network since the start of 2025, representing a third of what groups supporting Collins raised from all donors.

• The breadth of billionaire funding for Collins shows how the race, which could decide control of the U.S. Senate, has drawn national interest and funding from some of the wealthiest people in the world, a group that has made up a growing share of election spending in recent years. Billionaires accounted for 19 percent of all federal election contributions in 2024, up from just 0.3 percent in 2004, according to a New York Times analysis from earlier this year.

• Billionaires and their spouses gave $529,000 to the Collins campaign directly; $370,000 to the Collins Victory Committee, a joint fundraising committee that has disbursed funds to the other committees; $100,000 to Dirigo PAC, the leadership committee Collins uses to raise money for other candidates; and $24,000 to Susan Collins for Maine, a joint fundraising committee. But the billionaires have mostly opted to send their donations, nearly $9 million, to Pine Tree Results PAC, a super PAC dedicated to electing Collins that, unlike the others, is not subject to contribution limits. […]

• The network of five groups supporting Collins is linked through a series of joint fundraising agreements, which are legal arrangements that allow them to raise money together and then disburse the funds according to a predetermined formula. For the first time in Collins’ career, a super PAC — Pine Tree Results — is linked to her fundraising apparatus through those agreements, an arrangement made possible thanks to a 2024 advisory Federal Election Commission opinion. The super PAC also shares a treasurer with the Collins Victory Committee and Dirigo PAC.

• Counting all her donations, including both from billionaires and others, the Collins network has raised about $30 million since the beginning of last year, with $12 million going to her campaign. […]

• The Collins campaign did not respond to a request from The Monitor for an interview with the senator and then declined to answer questions over email. […]

• The majority of the billionaire donations to Collins this cycle are from billionaires who made their money in alternative investments, including hedge funds and private equity. Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel LLC, donated $2.5 million to the Pine Tree Results Super PAC, the largest individual donation backing Collins since 2025. Stephen Schwarzman, the founder and CEO of Blackstone dubbed “the king of private equity,” donated $2 million. Schwarzman and the private equity industry were some of Collins’ biggest boosters in her last campaign in 2020.

• Other billionaire Collins donors include Palantir co-founder Alex Karp; Melinda French-Gates, ex-wife of Microsoft founder Bill Gates; New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft; and Elizabeth Uihlein, husband of Richard Uihlein, the main financial backer of the effort to place a referendum question about trans athletes on Maine’s ballot this year.

• The billionaire donors supporting Collins have a net worth of $888 billion, or nearly nine times Maine’s entire economic output in 2025. None are Maine residents. […]

• This is the first time that Collins has been running for reelection since the Federal Election Commission issued an advisory opinion that allowed super PACs to join joint fundraising efforts, and Collins has taken advantage of the change. […]

• Critics, including the Democratic Party’s House and Senate fundraising arms, argued the arrangement was a clear violation of the ban on coordination, a ban that they argued has been regularly circumvented since the creation of the super PAC in 2010. […]

• The 2024 advisory opinion opened the door for the Collins campaign to connect with the Pine Tree Results Super PAC. The campaign and the PAC each have a joint fundraising agreement with the Collins Victory Committee, which has transferred funds to both organizations. Most of this money, a total of $2.4 million, has gone to the Collins campaign.

• The Pine Tree Results Super PAC and the Collins Victory Committee share a treasurer, and all three groups have paid the same fundraising and event planning consultant, the Morning Group, based in Washington, D.C., Federal Election Commission records show.

• Other outside groups are also spending large amounts on the race. For example, the Senate Leadership Fund, which is the main fundraising vehicle for Senate Republicans, has raised $175 million since the start of 2025 and has booked $29 million in ads for the race pitting Collins against Platner.

• Many of the donors to the Senate Leadership Fund also donated to parts of the Collins fundraising network, including Schwarzman and hedge fund manager Paul Singer. Other billionaires have donated large sums to the Senate Leadership Fund as well, including casino magnate Miriam Adelson, who donated $30 million, and Elon Musk, who gave $10 million.