[link removed] [[link removed]] JULY 24, 2025
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Who is leading the money race heading toward 2026?
[link removed]*s7kcc0*_gcl_au*MjA3NDg2MTMzLjE3NTMxOTQyMTU. [[link removed]*s7kcc0*_gcl_au*MjA3NDg2MTMzLjE3NTMxOTQyMTU.]
House and Senate candidates recently filed their fundraising reports covering the first six months of 2025. OpenSecrets' Brendan Glavin analyzed the data to determine which candidates have raised the most money and which ones are sitting on the biggest piles of cash.
Democrats snagged most of the top spots on both the fundraising and war chest lists, with Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) showing the biggest haul during the first six months of 2025 and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) reporting the most money on hand.
Biggest war chests among Senate candidates [[link removed]]
Top House fundraisers [[link removed]]
Click through for more data, including a look at the most competitive Senate races.
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Trump administration profile: Steve Witkoff
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President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, has become the frontman in negotiations in three global conflicts: in Iran, Gaza and — extending beyond his nominal jurisdiction — Ukraine.
Witkoff, who never worked in government prior to his selection in January, is a longtime friend of the president and has decades of experience facilitating business deals in the Middle East, where he strengthened connections between a number of sovereign wealth fund leaders. Now, as he negotiates with Middle East officials, his son is running parallel cryptocurrency ventures [[link removed]] with some of the same people and the Trump family. Democrats have questioned [[link removed]] whether the Witkoff and Trump families are profiting off those connections and threatening national security with their deals.
The Trump-Witkoff relationship runs deep: Witkoff’s son, Zach, got married at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in 2022; Witkoff testified during Trump’s civil fraud trial [[link removed]] in 2023; and he provided significant support for Trump’s presidential campaigns and affiliated PACs [[link removed]] . Witkoff was also with Trump at his West Palm Beach golf club in September 2024 when a man allegedly attempted to assassinate Trump [[link removed]] . Witkoff went on to serve as co-chair of the Presidential Inaugural Committee for Trump’s second term.
Witkoff has also been at the center of multiple failed ceasefire deals in Gaza and Ukraine, and has been criticized by Iran, whose leaders called Witkoff’s messaging on their nuclear facilities “contradictory and conflicting.” [[link removed]]
Despite the selection of Keith Kellogg to the role of special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Trump has leaned heavily on Witkoff to communicate about the war — potentially because Kellogg is not as critical of Ukraine [[link removed]] as many others in the Trump administration. A private plane carrying Witkoff even flew to Abu Dhabi and Qatar, then traveled to Azerbaijan and Russia before returning to Florida in March. Two months later, Trump was gifted a $400 million Boeing 747 from a Qatar — a deal brokered by Witkoff.
Natalie Jonas breaks down the numbers.
Follow the money
* Steve and Zach Witkoff co-founded the cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial along with the Trump family in 2024, contributing to ethics concerns [[link removed]] about Trump’s ties to such ventures. That business relationship came under further scrutiny when Steve Witkoff was named special envoy to the Middle East. Prior to his appointment to the role, Witkoff met with three of the wealthiest associates of sovereign wealth funds in the region, priming some of the Middle East’s richest to invest in WLF during Trump’s second term. Trump’s 2025 financial disclosures show that he reaped $57.4 million [[link removed]] from his stake in the company, which has been criticized as an ethical minefield.
* In 2024, Witkoff funneled the largest share of his and Witkoff Group’s $250,000 [[link removed]] in political contributions to Trump’s Make America Great Again PAC. Affiliates of the Witkoff Group also directed almost $913,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2020, $248,500 [[link removed]] of which coming from Witkoff personally, at the end of Trump’s first term.
* Witkoff personally donated $10,000 [[link removed]] to each Republican Party organization in 21 states ahead of the 2020 election. He also gave $100,000 [[link removed]] to Ron DeSantis in 2021.
* The Witkoff Group spent $50,000 [[link removed]] in lobbying in relation to the For the People Act of 2019, which aimed to empower voters across the country and counter corruption. This bill faced heavy opposition from the Republican-majority Senate that year and when it was re-introduced in 2021.
* WLF’s Zach Witkoff completed a $2 billion deal [[link removed]] with UAE-backed MGX Fund Management Limited, controlled by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, just before his father took the position of special envoy to the Middle East. In addition, Trump granted the UAE a massive contract that allowed the sale of certain American-made AI semiconductors to the Persian Gulf federation. The Trump family also holds more than $2 billion in WLF governance tokens, and might have seen a $100 million payout as a result of the state-backed UAE/WLF deal.
Why It Matters [[link removed]]
Additional profiles
* Mike Huckabee [[link removed]] , ambassador to Israel
* Lori Chavez-DeRemer [[link removed]] , secretary of labor
* J.D. Vance [[link removed]] , vice president
* Chuck Schumer [[link removed]] , Senate minority leader
* John Ratcliffe [[link removed]] , director of the CIA
* Doug Collins [[link removed]] , secretary of veterans affairs
* Hakeem Jeffries [[link removed]] , House minority leader
* Lee Zeldin [[link removed]] , EPA administrator
* Howard Lutnick [[link removed]] , secretary of commerce
* Mike Waltz [[link removed]] , national security advisor
* Marco Rubio [[link removed]] , secretary of state
* Sean Duffy [[link removed]] , secretary of transportation
* Susie Wiles [[link removed]] , White House chief of staff
* Tulsi Gabbard [[link removed]] , director national intelligence
* Kash Patel [[link removed]] , director of the FBI
* Kristi Noem [[link removed]] , secretary of homeland security
* Robert F. Kennedy Jr. [[link removed]] , secretary of health and human services
* Linda McMahon [[link removed]] , secretary of education
* Elise Stefanik [[link removed]] , ambassador to the United Nations
* Doug Burgum [[link removed]] , secretary of the interior
* Pete Hegseth [[link removed]] , secretary of defense
* Pam Bondi [[link removed]] , attorney general
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$10,000 stolen from Speaker Mike Johnson’s campaign committee
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Speaker Mike Johnson is celebrating massive [[link removed]] cuts [[link removed]] to foreign aid programs and public media that he successfully navigated through the House of Representatives.
But Johnson’s own political campaign budget just took a modest hit, too — thanks to a thief, according to new federal records reviewed by Dave Levinthal .
The Mike Johnson for Louisiana congressional committee lost $9,995.50 on April 28 when an unidentified person swiped one of the committee’s paper checks, which was “reissued to a fraudulent payee, and processed,” Johnson’s campaign wrote to the Federal Election Commission this week.
“This was not due to misuse of funds internally,” the campaign committee told federal regulators [[link removed]] . “The Committee is currently working with the bank to retrieve the lost funds if possible.”
Greg Steele, spokesman for Johnson’s campaign, told OpenSecrets on Friday that they do not know who stole the check and are “exploring” whether to involve law enforcement.
“We just caught it during our normal reconciliation process at the end of the financial quarter, and the account is locked down,” Steele said.
He added that Johnson’s campaign has had no other theft-related issues since.
While losing $10,000 will barely dent Johnson’s overall political finances — his committee reported [[link removed]] more than $6.7 million in cash on hand as of June 30 — the theft is the latest in a series of incidents involving fraudsters hitting high-profile politicians and party committees.
Taken together, federal political committees have lost millions of dollars this decade, an OpenSecrets analysis of federal records and media reports indicates [[link removed]] .
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What else we're reading
Crypto Industry Is Spending More on Lobbying Than Ever [[link removed]] (Sludge)
A health care lobbying boom [[link removed]] (Politico)
I'll show you the money — and reveal why it's nearly impossible to say where it came from [[link removed]] (AL.com)
Trump's Second Favorite Island (With Another List) [[link removed]] ( Zach’s Substack )
OpenSecrets in the News
See our media citations from outlets around the nation this week:
'One big beautiful' lobbying effort propels law firms, K Street revenues [[link removed]] (Reuters)
Companies, trade groups and other entities have continuously spent more money on lobbying since 2016, according to non-profit group OpenSecrets, which compiles lobbying records. In 2024, companies spent more than $4.44 billion to lobby Congress and federal agencies. Companies have spent more than $1.26 billion on lobbying in 2025 as of May 14, with about 10% of that money coming from the pharmaceutical and health products industry, according to OpenSecrets. Internet and electronics manufacturing industries accounted for about 8% of lobbying spending in the same period.
The big winner from Coca-Cola's Trump-inspired sugar push [[link removed]] (BBC)
Trump-backed groups are among the ones in recent years to have received significant donations from the Fanjul family, Florida-based sugar titans, according to OpenSecrets.
New tax policy may bring political campaigns to the pulpit, critics say [[link removed]] (Iowa Capital Dispatch)
“If you have the ability to influence the election, then people who have money who also want to influence elections are going to find a way to get you involved,” said Brendan Glavin, director of insights for OpenSecrets, a research group tracking money in U.S. politics.
The Maine Idea Behind Campaign Finance Reform [[link removed]] (National Journal)
The law and the legal fallout could have a significant ripple effect across the campaign finance world, said Hilary Braseth, president of OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan money-tracking organization. “Somebody might not feel the need to be clandestine if they’re giving five grand versus five million,” Braseth told Hotline. “I think that could actually be really interesting to see if that has any impact, if at all, on the influence of dark money in politics.”
Top British firms donated to Republicans who denied 2020 US election result [[link removed]] (Daily Mail)
The amounts that PACs can give to a candidate are limited to no more than $5000 for the primary and another $5000 for the election itself. Some British-listed companies have donated huge sums to Republican causes. British American Tobacco gave more than $25m to conservative causes in 2024, including $10m to Make America Great Again PAC, OpenSecrets has previously revealed.
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The OpenSecrets merch store is here!
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