Lobbyists in Washington bundled more than $4.1 million for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign last year, according to new disclosure forms analyzed by The Hill.
K Street is also showering cash on Sen. Marco Rubio, with lobbyists bundling roughly $1.17 million for the Florida Republican in 2015, the most of any GOP candidate. More than half of that total came during the last three months of the year, when five lobbyists cobbled together $676,192 in contributions for him.
{mosads}Geoff Verhoff, a senior policy advisor at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, is responsible for bringing in $491,045 for Rubio during the fourth quarter. From July to December, he helped add an overall total of $759,206 to Rubio’s campaign account.
Other Rubio bundlers include Scott Weaver, a senior public policy advisor at Wiley Rein who raised $164,146 during the last six months of the year, Covington & Burling’s Roger Zakheim, Joe Wall of Goldman Sachs and Brian Johnson, a tax lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute.
Overall, the Rubio campaign took in about $14 million during the fourth quarter of the year, according to records released by the Federal Election Commission this week. The Rubio campaign did not respond to a request from The Hill for comment about its fundraising.
Lobbyists who “bundle” cash by soliciting donations from others represent only a fraction of most campaign fundraising, but their efforts can provide a crucial boost to candidates.
Presidential campaigns can only raise a maximum of $2,700 from each donor per election, according to FEC contribution rules. The campaigns are required by law to disclose the lobbyists who raise money for them, but not non-lobbyists who have bundled money on their behalf.
Clinton and Jeb Bush, however, have made a point to publish a list of their individual bundlers.
A roster last updated by the Bush campaign in October shows 341 bundlers — including former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) — who have each helped collect at least $17,600 for the campaign. A Bush spokeswoman said the list would be updated later on Monday, but did not comment about the lobbyist bundlers.
Bush finished the year strong on the bundler front, with 11 lobbyists funneling $195,795 into his coffers from July to June.
The support from K Street, however, could prove to be a liability for the candidates in an election year that has been dominated by political outsiders.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), for example, on Monday criticized his rivals as being beholden to “special interests” as he sought to rally support for Monday night’s Iowa caucuses.
“While other candidates are funded by the special interests in Washington who obtain their power at expense of the American people, Ted Cruz’s campaign — which has more cash on hand than [Chris] Christie, Bush, and [John] Kasich combined — is funded by working Americans from across the country, of all walks of life,” Cruz campaign spokeswoman Catherine Frazier wrote to The Hill in an email.
“He answers to them and is fighting on their behalf every day to reverse our nation’s course, while others are content to continue the deal-making, the compromising, and the status quo,” Frazier said.
The Cruz statement echoes language from Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who has poured more than $12.6 million of his own money into his campaign and eschewing wealthy donors and K Street interests.
On the Democratic side, Clinton’s acceptance of lobbyist money marks a reversal from President Obama, who refused to take donations from registered lobbyists during his two White House runs.
Clinton lists more than 287 individuals as having bundled $100,000 or more for her campaign since she announced her bid for the White House in April.
Additionally, there are 26 lobbyists who have raked in a total of $2.05 million for the Clinton campaign since July. During the last three months of the year, they collected $716,981.
In the fourth quarter, some of Clinton’s top fundraisers included David Jones, a lobbyist at Capitol Counsel, who raised $158,286 from October to December and a total of $266,286 over the last six months. Another top bundler waslobbyist Tony Podesta, who collected $75,300 in the fourth quarter and has raised $130,900 overall.
Other major lobbyist bundlers throughout the last six months included Heather Podesta ($348,581), Capitol Counsel’s Richard Sullivan ($274,891), Timothy Regan of the manufacturing company Corning ($218,199) and ML Strategies’ David Leiter ($63,950).
Clinton is facing a tight race against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has made a point of rejecting money from lobbyists and special interests as he seeks the White House.
The Sanders campaign did not respond to a request for comment about Clinton’s bundlers, but has publicly noted that the Vermont senator has no bundlers of any kind.
“We don’t have bundlers. We don’t have a finance committee. We don’t have a finance director,” spokesman Michael Briggs told USA Today.
The campaign, Briggs said, relies on donations from more than a million donors “who have made an unprecedented 2.5 million contributions … because they want to fix the rigged economy propped up by a corrupt campaign finance system.”