US elections and record support from billionaires. They spent enormous amounts of money

The richest Americans do not spare money

According to an analysis by Politico, among the wealthiest residents of California there are more registered Democrats than Republicans, although the political preferences in this group are more diverse than among voters in general in the country.

The American website identified 166 billionaires in the California voter register - 36%. of them are registered as Democrats, compared to 45 percent. of all voters in this state. Unaffiliated people constitute 39 percent. billionaires, while among all voters this percentage is 23%. Republicans (22 percent of registered billionaires) are much smaller in California than Democrats.

Billionaires declaring support for Democrats include: Mark Zuckerberg, head of Meta, Sam Altman, head of OpenAI, and Dario Amodei, founder of Anthropic. Among those registered as Republicans are: former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, owner of the Golden State Warriors and Golden State Valkyries teams Joe Lacob, and entrepreneur Palmer Luckey, a donor to Donald Trump.

Data show that the situation is much more complex, said Republican political consultant Mike Murphy in an interview with the website, referring to the stereotype equating great wealth with support for Republicans.

$612 million for elections. Californian billionaires stepped up with financial support

The scale of the financial involvement of the richest was unprecedented. Billionaire Tom Steyer spent more than $200 million on his unsuccessful gubernatorial primary campaign. More than $300 million was spent on a counter-campaign against the proposal of one-time taxation of the state's wealthiest residents, led by Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Surgeon and inventor Gary Michelson also donated tens of millions of dollars.

More than 30 billionaires on the registry live in San Francisco, and another 15 live in Los Angeles. Over 60 percent people in this wealth group, identified by Politico, voted in each of the last three presidential elections.

The website's analysis shows that although California billionaires support Democrats more often than Republicans, the largest group are people who are not formally associated with either of the two main parties.

On Tuesday, Americans will elect the entire House of Representatives and 35 of 100 senators, as well as governors in 36 states. Polls show that Democrats are favorites to take control of both houses of Congress.