A wealthy California vintner is trying to make a big splash in the Senate special election in faraway Massachusetts.
In the past two weeks, John Jordan has singlehandedly spent more than $1.2 million to help Republican candidate Gabriel Gomez in an uphill race against longtime Democratic Rep. Edward Markey.
The 41-year-old chief executive of the Jordan Vineyard and Winery has jumped into the race under the guise of a mysterious super PAC with a somewhat un-Republican name, Americans for Progressive Action. Until now, the group has kept the identity of it sole backer under wraps.
Mr. Jordan and his family, who established the prestigious Jordan Winery in California’s Sonoma Valley in the 1970s, are longtime Republican donors who have given over $250,000 to GOP candidates and causes over the past three election cycles, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Mr. Jordan gave more than $60,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2011 and 2012, and has hosted fundraisers at the family estate for Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Republican Governors Association.
But his expenditures on Mr. Gomez’s behalf, which are expected to top $1.5 million, dwarf anything he has done before and make him an even larger contributor to the Gomez cause than the GOP’s own National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has put $900,000 into the Massachusetts race.
As with a number of other conservative donors after last year’s election losses, Mr. Jordan says he came away feeling disenchanted with his party and its choice of federal candidates, both presidential and congressional.
“I am pro-choice and in favor of gay marriage. I am a centrist,” he said, describing the November election as “an epiphany” that revealed to him how the GOP had to turn to “moderate centrist reasonable people who have the best interests of the country at heart.”
The creation of Mr. Jordan’s super PAC, Americans for Progressive Action, stirred speculation earlier this month about the group’s origins and backers. Its treasurer, Nancy Watkins, used to work for Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, while its spokeswoman, Sheena Tahilramani, once served as chief of state to former Bush White House aide Karl Rove.