WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU A
BY ISAAC STANLEY-BECKERPeter Thiel, the billionaire ven-
ture capitalist and tech entrepre-
neur, put an additional $3.5 mil-
lion this month into a super PAC
supporting Blake Masters in the
highly competitive Republican
primary for U.S. Senate in Ari-
zona, according to a person famil-
iar with the contribution.
The previously unreported do-
nation is Thiel’s first new invest-
ment in the super PAC, Saving
Arizona, since he seeded it with
$10 million more than a year ago.
It brings his investment in Mas-
ters — a friend and former em-
ployee who recently resigned his
leadership positions at Thiel’s
foundation and hedge fund — to
$13.5 million.
Thiel increased his outlay for
Masters after the May 3 primary
victory in Ohio of J.D. Vance,
another friend and former em-
ployee, reflecting Thiel’s decision
to go all-in on the two populist
firebrands and first-time candi-
dates.
Thiel similarly funded a pro-
Vance super PAC to the tune of
$10 million. He invested an addi-
tional $3.5 million after the “Hill-
billy Elegy” author secured for-
mer president Donald Trump’s
endorsement last month and, in
the final days of the Senate pri-
mary, put in an additional
$1.5 million. Thiel and Trump
spoke by phone in the days after
Vance’s win, with the former pres-
ident enthusing about the out-
come of the race, according to a
person with knowledge of the
conversation who, like others in
this report, spoke on the condi-
tion of anonymity to share private
details.
Thiel has accompanied both
candidates to meet with Trump,
whose endorsement Masters is
still aggressively seeking — a po-
tential game changer in a race
where there has been little inde-
pendent polling, and no clear
front-runner. People close to Mas-
ters say the money helps make
him viable, and provides a sym-
bolic boost, but is nowhere near
as consequential as what Trumpdecides to do.
In a question-and-answer ses-
sion Sunday evening on Spaces, a
live chat feature on Twitter, Mas-ters shrugged off reports that
Trump might hold back endorse-
ments in future contests follow-
ing a spotty record in spring
primaries, and he expressed con-
fidence that he would gain the
former president’s favor before
the August primary. The winner
will face Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.)
in what could be among the clos-
est Senate contests nationwide at
a time when the chamber is split
50-50.
Thiel’s expenditures on Mas-
ters and Vance, both millennials
seeking to push their party in a
more nationalist direction, are
among the largest sums ever con-
tributed to individual Senate can-
didates. If elected, Masters and
Vance would help fulfill the liber-
tarian’s vision of empowering Re-
publicans who want to curtail the
U.S. role globally, roll back regula-
tion and rupture norms of speech
and “political correctness.”
Thiel, said Masters last year,
“sees some promise in me, but he
knows I’ll be an independent-minded senator.”
Masters, 35, has promoted
tougher immigration rules and
more advanced technology to se-
cure the U.S.-Mexico border. He
has said that families should be
able to rely on a single income,
opining that the alternative
“makes us more controllable and
undermines the nuclear family.”
He has embraced the former
president’s false claims about the
last election, saying in a cam-
paign video, “I think Trump won
in 2020.”
Saving Arizona has spent
about $3.5 million so far on ad-
vertising boosting Masters, ac-
cording to filings with the Federal
Election Commission. It has also
funded advertising opposing
Mark Brnovich, the attorney gen-
eral and rival Senate primary
candidate, whom Trump has crit-
icized for failing to act on unsup-
ported claims of voter fraud. The
other leading contender, busi-
nessman Jim Lamon, has put at
least $13 million of his moneyinto his campaign.
Thiel is a co-founder of the
payment processor PayPal and
the data-mining company Palan-
tir, and he was the first outside
investor in Facebook. He has been
a Republican donor for more
than two decades. He has donat-
ed broadly to Republican candi-
dates and committees, and to
long-shot libertarian candidates
such as former congressman Ron
Paul (Tex.), and immigration
hard-liners such as Kris Kobach, a
former Kansas secretary of state.
Thiel’s political investments
have grown more shrewd over
time, say people who have
worked with him. “Peter is not a
‘fight the good fight’ kind of guy,”
said a Republican operative who
helped broker a 2012 meeting
between the venture capitalist
and Paul’s son, Sen. Rand Paul
(R-Ky.). “Peter wants to win. He
places a high value on political
viability. He was starting to ques-
tion Rand’s electability and
backed away.”
Thiel bucked left-leaning Sili-
con Valley by betting big on
Trump in 2016. During the presi-
dential transition, he and his as-
sociates, including Masters,
helped staff key government
roles. Last summer and fall, the
tech entrepreneur sent several
thousand dollars apiece to a wide
range of pro-Trump congres-
sional candidates, igniting hopes
among some Republicans that he
was positioning himself to be-
come a megadonor on the scale of
libertarian brothers David and
Charles Koch, or former New
York mayor Mike Bloomberg,
who has given millions in recent
years to Democratic candidates
and causes.
But Thiel, who steps down this
week from the board of Meta,
Facebook’s parent company, has
told associates he plans to focus
this election cycle on Masters and
Vance, with whom he has person-
al ties, and mostly stay out of
other races, according to people
who have spoken to him.
“I have friends who would like
to see him writing more checks,”
said a business associate who
shares Thiel’s politics. “But I
don’t see him becoming much
more expansive in his activities,
not like a Bloomberg or a Koch.”Thiel sticks with Masters in Ariz. race for Senate seat
Tech investor donates
millions to support
Republican newcomerGREGORY KORTE/BLOOMBERG NEWSCAROLYN KASTER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOP: Blake Masters, a U.S. Senate hopeful in Arizona, is flanked by
supporters Kurt Buckwald, left, and Kevin Kortsen in Flagstaff last
month. ABOVE: Peter Thiel has given millions to boost the
campaign of Masters, a friend and former employee who recently
resigned his leadership positions at Thiel’s foundation and hedge
fund. Thiel similarly funded a super PAC that backed J.D. Vance of
Ohio, who won the Republican Senate primary there this month.BY ISAAC ARNSDORFIn 2000, George P. Bush — then
24 and about to enter the Univer-
sity of Texas Law School — re-
corded a Spanish-language ad for
his uncle’s presidential cam-
paign. He looked primed to be his
storied family’s next standard-
bearer, updated for the 21st cen-
tury: bilingual, telegenic, the son
of a governor and an immigrant
from Mexico. The campaign’s ad
maker, Mark McKinnon, took to
calling him “47,” in anticipation
that “P,” as he’s known to friends
and family, would before long
join his grandfather (George H.W.
Bush, 41) and uncle (George W.
Bush, 43) in the American presi-
dential pantheon.
But now, as Bush wraps up a
runoff for Texas attorney general,
his place in that political dynasty
has been an obstacle in a party
now in thrall to a different fa-
mous surname.
“It’s tough running in Texas as
a Bush. I think it’s the end of the
line,” said Richard Murray, a po-
litical science professor at the
University of Houston. “Bush is a
four-letter word right now in
Texas far-right politics.”
The question for Texas Repub-
lican primary voters today is
whether the name Bush proves a
bigger problem than even the
swirl of legal troubles dogging the
incumbent attorney general, Ken
Paxton — a seven-year-old securi-
ties fraud indictment, a separate
FBI corruption investigation, and
a bar review over his efforts to
overturn the 2020 election. Pax-
ton has denied wrongdoing in all
those cases.
The Bush campaign didn’t re-
spond to a request for comment.
The result could be closer than
widely expected, according to
Dave Carney, a Republican strat-
egist who has advised George
H.W. Bush and Texas Gov. Greg
Abbott. Carney noted that almost
23 percent of early runoff voters
did not vote in the primary, and it
wasn’t clear who they’d support.
Texas has been the Bush fam-
ily’s adoptive homeland ever
since 1948, when George H.W.
Bush, a Connecticut blue blood,
senator’s son, combat pilot and
Yale graduate, moved with his
wife and young son to the Mid-
land oil fields. For eight years
when George W. Bush was in the
White House, his ranch in Craw-
ford served as a presidential get-
away. And the state is home to
two presidential libraries, an in-
ternational airport, schools,
roads and parks all bearing the
same storied name.
George P. Bush ran with 100
percent name recognition, but
the name was among his biggest
weakness, according to political
observers in the state. Forty per-
cent of Texas Republican primary
voters said they’d never vote for
Bush, with two-thirds of them
saying the reason was his name,
according to a March survey by
the Texas Hispanic Policy Foun-
dation. (The second biggest com-
plaint was about Bush’s handling
of the Alamo historic site as Texas
land commissioner, though most
voters weren’t exactly sure what
he did wrong, according to Mark
P. Jones, a Rice University politics
professor who conducted the sur-
vey.)
The result about the Bush fam-
ily name echoed an alarming
finding early in the 2016 presi-
dential campaign of Bush’s father,Jeb. When the campaign’s inter-
nal pollsters asked voters what
they didn’t like about the candi-
date, about 40 percent gave an
answer that amounted to the fact
that his name was Bush, accord-
ing to Tim Miller, who worked as
the campaign’s spokesman.
Trump capitalized on the Re-
publican base’s disaffection with
the Bush family, going so far as to
blame George W. Bush for the
9/11 terrorist attacks in a 2016
primary debate.
“The Bush brand is not what
Republican base voters are look-
ing for right now,” Miller said.
“It’s not like [George P. Bush] was
some Bush third cousin, or the
rebel in the family. He was very
much the natural successor to the
original Bush brand, and no mat-
ter how much he tried to change,
people could smell it wasn’t au-
thentic MAGA,” he said, referring
to Trump’s “Make America Great
Again” movement.
Bush has tried to outrun his
family legacy by repositioning
himself as an America First can-didate. His campaign rolled out
red beer koozies with a rendering
of Trump shaking Bush’s hand
and saying, “This is the Bush that
got it right.” He ran to the right on
immigration, moving from sup-
porting in-state tuition for un-
documented immigrants brought
to the country as children to
promising to finish building
Trump’s border wall. He called for
declaring an “invasion” at the
border. He appeared on Real
America’s Voice, the right-wing
video network that’s home to
former Trump strategist Stephen
K. Bannon, to support adding
more prosecutors to pursue voter
fraud.
Bush also closed the campaign
by hitting Paxton harder for his
ethics scandals. Paxton ads
throughout the campaign at-
tacked Bush as a “liberal.”
“Campaigns still matter, we’ll
see who ran a better campaign,”
Carney said.
Bush’s gestures at Trumpism
made some longtime friends of
his and his family’s cringe.“I was disappointed in him and
told him that to his face,” said
Jason Villalba, a former state
senator who renounced the GOP
in 2016 and now leads the Texas
Hispanic Policy Foundation. “But
I also know politics. He’s playing a
role he’s got to play in order to
win. I get it. Trumpism is what it
means to be a Republican today.”
But others say Bush genuinely
holds views to the right of his
famous family members. His fa-
ther, Jeb Bush, as governor of
Florida was considered more of a
conservative darling than his
brother George W. Bush was as
governor of Texas. And George P.
Bush’s coming of age coincided
with the rise of a Republican base
that prized all-out partisan war-fare. In 2012, the younger Bush
rocked the Texas GOP establish-
ment by endorsing long-shot con-
servative firebrand Ted Cruz for
Senate and then calling him the
future of the party.
“I’m not at all surprised that
George P. would be more con-
servative and more receptive to
the shifts in the Republican Party
that occurred over the last 15 to
20 years,” said Daron Shaw, who
worked on the 2000 and 2004
presidential campaigns and is
now a politics professor at the
University of Texas at Austin. “It’s
a new generation and he’s been
more sensitive to some of these
issues. I think he’s more that way
than Jeb and W.”
Many observers, though, say
Bush has struggled to convince
Texas primary voters that his
genes are not his destiny. They’ve
been let down by Bushes before,
said Luke Macias, a Texas-based
Republican consultant and pod-
cast host who works with a PAC
supporting Paxton.
“George W. Bush spent his en-
tire political career telling con-
servatives and evangelicals, ‘I’m
one of you,’ and then often gov-
erning in the middle and cam-
paigning on the right,” Macias
said. “There’s a little bit of ‘Fool
me once, shame on you. Fool me
twice, shame on me’ to Texas
voters who feel like they’ve been
fooled by Bushes quite a few
times,” he added, quoting a prov-
erb that the former president
famously flubbed.
There was no room to cam-
paign to the right of Paxton, who
asked the Supreme Court to over-
turn the 2020 election, spoke at
the Jan. 6, 2021, rally that turned
into an attack on the Capitol, and
has attacked gender-affirming
health care for transgender chil-
dren. Paxton locked up Trump’s
endorsement, notwithstanding
the detailing on any beer koozies.
“The idea that the Bushes are
insufficiently conservative is very
hard to get your mind around.
1994 me watching George W.
Bush beat Ann Richards handily
would not believe 2022 me telling
1994 me this guy will one day in
the future be seen as a RINO,” said
Evan Smith, the CEO of the Texas
Tribune, using a term that stands
for “Republican in Name Only.”
“Bush’s brand of conservatism
does not compute in the modern
world. The world changed.”For the Bush political dynasty, a Texas race could be ‘the end of the line’
COOPER NEILL FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
George P. Bush, the grandson and nephew of former presidents with deep connections to Texas, is in a Republican runoff against
incumbent attorney general Ken Paxton. Paxton has legal issues, but Bush’s last name may be a bigger problem in the Trump-centric GOP.“It’s tough running inTexas as a Bush.”
Richard Murray, University of
Houston p olitical science professorElection 2022