Why Did Carly Fiorina Accept $500,000 From a Ted Cruz Super PAC?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Ted Cruz has a stable of super PACs supporting him. One is called “Keep the Promise 1” and it did something odd a few months ago: it donated $500,000 to Carly Fiorina. I missed this at the time, but an FEC letter has brought it back into the spotlight:

Keep the Promise 1 had a healthy $10 million on hand from a $11 million donation from hedge fund CEO Robert Mercer as of the end of June. But it only spent $536,169. A little for legal services. A little for surveys. And a whole lot for Fiorina.

….The donation to Fiorina was made June 18, which shows tremendous foresight. Fiorina was barely registering then, not yet revealed as the scrappy underdog with killer debate skills. And Donald Trump had yet to steal most of Cruz’s disenchanted voters.

Nobody knows why a Ted Cruz super PAC would donate half a million dollars to Carly Fiorina’s campaign. But that’s not what I’m really interested in. What I want to know is why Fiorina’s campaign accepted the donation. Fiorina has shown an impressive aptitude for tap dancing and misdirection, but I don’t think even she can pretend that a gigantic check appeared out of nowhere and they didn’t bother asking any questions about it. So what’s the deal, Carly?

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate