Political leanings: Conservative/Republican
2022 Spending: $291 Million
The Senate Leadership Fund is a Republican super PAC that was established in 2015 by allies of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The group says its purpose is “to build a Republican Senate majority.” Its president is Steven Law, who served as McConnell’s chief of staff from 1991 to 1997. Law also serves as the president and CEO of both American Crossroads, a Republican super PAC, and One Nation, a conservative advocacy group registered with the IRS as a nonprofit. From 1998 to 2000, Law served as executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
As a super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund can accept unlimited contributions, but it must disclose its donors and cannot coordinate its spending with candidate campaigns. As of March 31, the super PAC had raised $64 million heading into the 2024 election, according to its filings with the Federal Election Commission.
The group’s largest individual donor is Ken Griffin, the billionaire CEO of the Citadel hedge fund company, who has given $10 million. An additional $7.2 million was donated by One Nation, which is reportedly putting at least $70 million into key 2024 Senate races in swing states. The super PAC also received large contributions from the petroleum industry, including $4 million from Occidental Petroleum Corp. and $2.5 million from both the American Petroleum Institute and Chevron Corporation.
As of the end of March, Senate Leadership Fund reported spending nearly $8.2 million during the 2024 cycle, with almost $6.8 million of that total being used on operating expenditures. At the time, the super PAC had contributed about $1.4 million to other committees, including a $895,000 contribution to Conservative Americans PAC and a $500,000 contribution to Keystone Renewal PAC, which is supporting Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania.
SLF does plan to spend big later this year; it reportedly has reserved over $57 million in ads that will target Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana. Both are up for reelection in races that the Cook Political Report considers to be toss-ups. The ads are scheduled to run from Labor Day, on Sept. 3, until Election Day, on Nov. 5.
The super PAC also has reserved $24 million in ads to help McCormick in his race against incumbent Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. Those ads are scheduled to start in September as well.
That amount still isn’t close to the super PAC’s spending for the 2022 midterms. During that election cycle, it spent $291 million, including $246 million on independent expenditures that “expressly advocate” the election or defeat of a specific candidate. That included about $45.2 million against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who won reelection, and almost $47.6 million against Democrat John Fetterman, who won his race to become Pennsylvania’s junior U.S. senator.
FactCheck.org Undergraduate Fellow Logan Chapman contributed to this article.