Peter Thiel makes $10M bet on associate in Arizona Senate race
The list of potential candidates also includes state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, energy company executive Jim Lamon and Rep. Andy Biggs. The anti-tax Club for Growth has signaled it would likely back Biggs, the chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and an outspoken supporter of former President Donald Trump, should he enter the contest.
. . .Masters, a Stanford-educated venture capitalist and attorney, has generated early attention as a likely candidate. He publicly mulled waging a 2020 primary challenge to then-GOP Sen. Martha McSally, though he ultimately decided against it. Masters has long been close with Thiel: In 2014, the two co-authored "Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future."
Thiel has been a big Republican donor for well over a decade, dishing out hundreds of thousands of dollars to support Trump’s campaigns. His favored candidates have not always been successful, however. . . .But Thiel’s investments in Masters and Vance are by far his largest in support of any federal candidate. Those close to Thiel say he’s also looking at potentially supporting other 2022 contenders, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is seeking reelection, and army veteran Joe Kent, who is waging a challenge to GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Trump impeachment backer, in Washington state's all-party primary next year.
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Peter Thiel is spending $10 million to back a business partner’s Senate bid
Vying for former astronaut Mark Kelly’s Arizona Senate seat
Venture capitalist Peter Thiel has put $10 million into a newly formed PAC backing a business partner’s Senate bid, as first reported by Politico.
Formed on April 19th, the Saving Arizona PAC is taking aim at the state’s 2022 Senate race, which will see former astronaut Mark Kelly defending his seat for the Democrats. According to Politico, the PAC will support Thiel Capital executive Blake Masters in the Republican primary and general election, putting him at an immediate fundraising advantage in one of the most closely watched races of the cycle.
Masters came to prominence as the co-author of Thiel’s popular book, Zero to One, and was hired shortly afterward as an executive at Thiel Capital. The book originated as Masters’ notes from a class Thiel taught at Stanford, published on Masters’ Tumblr-hosted blog in 2012. He has never held public office; his most significant government experience is a four-month stint clerking at a US Attorney’s office in 2010.
Masters did not respond to a request for comment.
A longtime critic of liberal values, Thiel has been particularly aligned with the US Republican party since 2016, when he was an enthusiastic and public supporter of former President Trump and spoke in support of Trump at the Republican National Convention. Thiel reportedly chose to distance himself from Trump after the COVID-19 crisis but has remained an active donor for Republican candidates. In a 2020 Kansas Senate race, Thiel donated $850,000 in support of Kris Kobach, notorious for advocating a “Muslim registry” in the early days of the Trump administration. (Ultimately, the bid was unsuccessful.) In the 2022 cycle, Thiel also donated $10 million toward Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance’s push for a Senate seat in Ohio.
The Republican candidate in 2022 will be facing off against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), who joined the Senate after a special election in 2020. Husband of former US Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), Kelly has been outspoken on issues of climate and health care, pledging to bring a renewed focus on data and science to the Senate.
“When you are trying to make these hard decisions, it’s important to look at the data,” Kelly told The Verge in an interview in 2019. “We sometimes elect people who have beliefs that are just not true and are not rooted in reality and facts.”
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