RE: Despite his protestations to the contrary, Cruz is a Washington insider who is controlled by the corporate elites.
Which corporate elites?
Mr. Mercer, a reclusive Long Islander who started at I.B.M. and made his fortune using computer patterns to outsmart the stock market, emerged this week as a key early bankroller of Mr. Cruz’s surprisingly fast campaign start. He is believed to be the main donor behind a network of four “super PACs†supporting Mr. Cruz that reported raising $31 million just a few weeks into his campaign.
The emergence of rich and relatively low-profile donors like Mr. Mercer could single-handedly jump-start a presidential campaign, said Trevor Potter, a campaign finance lawyer who served as a Republican member of the Federal Election Commission.
Here’s where Ted Cruz gets his campaign money
Since he began campaigning for the 2012 Senate race in Texas, Cruz raised about $18 million, not including any Mercer money. His single biggest donor has been the Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group funded by wealthy contributors including industrialists Charles and David Koch, private-equity baron J.W. Childs and tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel. The group has given Cruz $706,000 since 2011, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Among corporate donors, the oil and gas industry has been Cruz’s biggest supporter, even though it ranks seventh in spending among all candidates. Support from energy firms is hardly surprising, given that Cruz is from Texas. Law firms came next, followed by the securities industry and real-estate concerns. Here are Cruz’s top donors since 2011:
Club for Growth and Goldman-Sachs among biggest contributors.