$10 million in contributions from the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his wife helped a “super PAC†supporting Mitt Romney raise $20 million during the first seventeen days of October, a faster pace than the group has set in any previous period, according to disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday.
The super PAC, Restore Our Future, has now raised about $150 million during the 2012 cycle, including money it spent to help Mr. Romney win the Republican presidential nomination. As of Oct. 17, the group had about $24.2 million in cash for the final three weeks of the election.
The money helped Restore last week make the largest ad buy in its history, a $12 million campaign that is covering nine battleground states.
The main super PAC backing President Obama, Priorities USA Action, raised about $13 million during the same period and began the final phase of the campaign with about $10 million in cash, less than half that o f Restore.
Restore Our Future's other big donors in October included Kenneth Griffin, a Chicago hedge fund billionaire, who gave $500,000; Jerry Perenchio, the former chairman of Univision, the financier Julian Robertson, and the real estate developer Edward St. John, who each gave $1 million.
Large donors to Priorities USA Action included a new group of Silicon Valley donors, including the Zygna founder Mark Pincus, Linked In's founder Reid Garrett Hoffman, and the venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who each gave $1 million.
