The Georgia midterm runoff between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Donald Trump-backed Republican Herschel Walker was officially the most expensive midterm race of 2022, according to new data from OpenSecrets.org. As Warnock wins a seat in the US Senate, read on to find out who spent what and where exactly the campaign funds came from. All dollar amounts in US dollars. 

Democrat Reverend Raphael Warnock (pictured) came out on top in the Georgia runoff, giving the Democrats a 51-49 advantage in the Senate. According to OpenSecrets.org, over $412.6 million was spent in total on the campaigns for Warnock and Walker by their supporters and special interest groups. Of this total figure, over $126 million was spent directly by the Warnock campaign, while he raised a total of $150.5 million. 

One of Warnock's biggest donors was Google's parent company Alphabet. Its logo might be red, but Alphabet Inc – which is led by CEO Sundar Pichai – donated $302,756 to turn the Peach State blue this year. Pichai has personally clashed with Donald Trump in the past; the former POTUS filed a class-action lawsuit against Pichai last year after being temporarily suspended from YouTube following the Capitol riots. 

Other prominent donors to Warnock's campaign include the University of California, which donated $283,753; pro-peace nonprofit J Street, which donated $169,053; Emory University, which donated $128,596, and Microsoft, which donated $125,471. The single biggest donor was the political action committee (PAC) American Bridge 21st Century, which was founded by the journalist David Brock, and spent $4.27 million promoting Warnock in Georgia this year. 

Meanwhile, Republican candidate and former American football star Herschel Walker (pictured) spent around $48.5 million – less than half the amount spent by his Democratic rival – and raised a total of $58.3 million. Walker was publicly endorsed by Donald Trump and a portion of his campaign funds was spent on broadcasting TV ads that showcased Trump's support. Ironically, his rival Warnock reportedly paid to air the same ads, confident in the belief that an endorsement from Donald Trump could do more harm to Walker than good. 

Walker may have amassed less money in total, but he did boast the single largest donor of the runoff. The PAC 34N22, which takes its name from the fact Walker wore the number 34 during his football career, donated a whopping $6.79 million to his campaign. Richard Uihlein, CEO of office supply company Uline, donated $1 million to the PAC, while Home Depot founder Bernard Marcus donated $1.75 million. 

Meanwhile, Walker also received funds from the PAC Americans for Prosperity Action. This conservative/libertarian group is largely bankrolled by the Kansas-based corporation Koch Industries. 

Thanks to Georgia's notoriety as a swing state, it's not surprising that donors have poured millions of dollars into the runoff. It might have been the most expensive, but the battle between Warnock and Walker isn't the only political head-to-head that's inspired wealthy benefactors to splash the cash. 

Campaign donations for the most recent midterms were almost double the total for the 2018 cycle, according to a study by The Washington Post, with the wealthiest benefactors handing over record amounts of money. In fact, the 10 most deep-pocketed backers doled out more than half a billion dollars between them. Read on to find out who they are, how much they gave, and which parties benefited from their generosity. 

Patrick Ryan is CEO and chairman of Ryan Specialty Group, the Chicago-headquartered insurance firm he founded in 2010. Prior to his current role, Ryan was at the helm of the world's second-largest brokerage firm Aon for an impressive 41 years. Together with his wife Shirley, the industry bigwig – who is worth $8.6 billion – is heavily into political giving.

Billionaires in the US largely lean Republican and the Ryans are passionate devotees of the party. Like other megadonors, the couple favor putting their money into super political action committees, or PACs, that can raise unlimited sums to support election candidates but not fund them directly.

Super PACs backing GOP Senate and House candidates have received $24 million from the Ryans this election cycle, while $1.5 million went to Americans for Prosperity Action, the PAC that spent $1.43 million opposing Raphael Warnock in Georgia. 

One of the most high-profile megadonors in the top 10, Peter Thiel is best known for being the co-founder of PayPal and the first major Facebook investor. As a partner in Silicon Valley venture capital company Founders Fund, he has helped finance SpaceX, Airbnb, and other tech titans, and was instrumental in setting up big data firm Palantir.

A staunch MAGA Republican, Thiel, who has a net worth of $4.2 billion, plowed almost all his donation money this election cycle into supporting two Trump-endorsed Senate candidates. Hybrid PAC/super PAC Protect Ohio Values, which backed J D Vance's campaign, garnered $15 million, as did Saving Arizona, a super PAC funding Blake Masters.

Staying with Silicon Valley billionaires, Larry Ellison has a 35% stake in Oracle, the software behemoth he co-founded in 1977. The tech tycoon, who owns the Hawaiian island of Lanai where he now permanently resides, is no longer Oracle's CEO, but remains chairman and acts as CTO of the company. Worth $101.7 billion, he's by far the richest individual in the top 10.

Another diehard MAGA Republican, Ellison channeled $30 million into Opportunity Matters Fund, a super PAC supporting South Carolina Senator Tim Scott's re-election bid, and four GOP candidates who have cast doubt on the 2020 presidential election result.

Ellison was the sole funder of the super PAC that backed former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus' ill-fated run for Tennessee's fifth Congressional District. Unpopular among local Republicans and with few links to the state, she was kicked off the ballot in August.

The only real old money megadonor in the top 10, Timothy Mellon is a member of the storied Mellon dynasty, whose wealth derives from the clan's eponymous bank, which was established way back in 1869. The chairman of transportation company Pan Am Systems, the Wyoming-based businessman has a significant share of the $11.5 billion family fortune, meaning he can spend big on candidates who share his political beliefs.

A stalwart Trump fan, Mellon has bankrolled MAGA candidates in the past and is a major contributor to Texas governor Greg Abbott's Mexican border wall project, which picks up where the ex-POTUS left off.

For the latest election cycle, the banking heir gave $10 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC and $5 million apiece to two super PACs supporting GOP candidates in his home state of Wyoming and nationwide.

Stephen Schwarzman co-founded Blackstone as a small-scale mergers and acquisitions firm in 1985. Today, Blackstone is the world's largest alternative investment company, managing assets approaching a trillion dollars. Needless to say, Schwarzman, who serves as chairman and CEO, is very rich indeed, with his net worth pegged by Forbes at $25.5 billion.

Schwarzman is a veteran GOP supporter and remains one of Trump's most ardent Wall Street admirers. The billionaire investor gave $20 million to the Senate Leadership Fund and $10 million to the congressional version, which support Republican candidates across the country.

Schwarzman also backed Dr Mehmet Oz's unsuccessful bid to become senator for Pennsylvania to the tune of a million dollars donated to the American Leadership Action super PAC.

Blockchain billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried amassed a $17.2 billion fortune in the space of just five years off the back of FTX, the once successful cryptocurrency exchange he founded in 2019, not to mention crypto trading firm Alameda Research, which Bankman-Fried set up two years earlier. He intended to give the lion's share of his money to charity and had already established himself as a political megadonor.

Bankman-Fried's fortunes took a serious tumble in November, following the collapse and subsequent bankruptcy of FTX. But before losing the majority of his fortune (he reportedly has just $100,000 left), the entrepreneur was a prominent donor to the Democratic Party. 

One of only two Democratic Party supporters in the top 10, Bankman-Fried is also the youngest. This electoral cycle saw him funnel $27 million into Protect Our Future, which is a left-leaning hybrid PAC/super PAC, meaning it can operate as both a PAC financing candidates directly, or indirectly as a super PAC. The millennial's other major donations include $6 million to the House Majority hybrid PAC/super PAC supporting Democratic House candidates and the non-partisan GMI super PAC, which bankrolls pro-crypto political hopefuls.

Another relative newcomer to the Forbes Billionaires' list, Jeff Yass is co-founder of Wall Street trading firm Susquehanna International Group, which struck gold by investing in TikTok owner ByteDance in the app's early days. This fantastically shrewd move has worked wonders on Yass' net worth, which currently amounts to $30 billion.

A registered Libertarian, Yass donated $16.5 million to Club for Growth Action, an anti-big government super PAC supporting ultra-conservative candidates. A super PAC backing hopefuls fighting COVID-related school closures has bagged $15 million, while Yass also cut a $5 million check for Kentucky Freedom, a super PAC working to get his favorite politician Rand Paul re-elected as junior senator of the state.

Ken Griffin started trading in 1987 as a student at Harvard University. Three years later he founded Citadel, the flourishing hedge fund firm that has made him $31.7 billion. The Miami-based company currently manages around $57 billion in assets. A mega-philanthropist as well as a political megadonor, Griffin has dished out a total of $1.5 billion to charitable causes. 

Unlike the majority of Republicans in the top 10, Griffin gave the 45th POTUS the cold shoulder and favored moderate, diverse, "anti-Trump" GOP candidates in the midterms.

When it comes to his donations, the biggest have gone to the Congressional and Senate Leadership Fund super PACs, which received $45 million. Griffin's other supersized donation was $8.8 million to the super PAC supporting David McCormick in Pennsylvania's Republican Senate primary, which he lost to the Trump-backed Dr Oz.

The previously mentioned Uihleins are billionaires thanks to Uline, the Wisconsin-based company the couple set up in their basement in 1980 and which now bills itself as America's leading distributor of shipping, packaging, and industrial supplies. Over the years, the Uihleins, which have a combined net worth of $7.8 billion, have given astronomical sums of money to their favored political candidates and causes.

The Uihleins lean very much to the right. Their biggest donation this election cycle, a beefy $28.5 million, was to the ultra-conservative Club for Growth Action super PAC. Restoration PAC, an extreme-right super PAC that advocates a flat rate of tax and the abolition of trade unions and the Department of Education, was next with $20.8 million, followed by $3.5 million to a super PAC backing hardline Trump supporter Ron Johnson's Senate re-election campaign. This was all in addition to their $1 million donation to 34N22, the PAC promoting Herschel Walker in Georgia. 

Hungarian-American investor George Soros survived the Holocaust and escaped communist oppression to create the world's most successful hedge fund, which famously broke the Bank of England in 1992 by massively shorting the pound, netting its boss a billion dollars in a single day.

One of the most generous philanthropists of all time, Soros has donated over $32 billion to charitable causes, yet remains in the billionaire club with a fortune of $6.7 billion.

Left of center in his political beliefs, Soros is vilified by the right for his support of liberal candidates and causes, and the subject of all sorts of wild, and often anti-Semitic, conspiracy theories.

The biggest individual donor this election cycle put a colossal $125 million into Democracy PAC II, which backs Democratic contenders nationwide, and donated an additional million dollars to a super PAC supporting Black progressive candidates across the country.

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