Billionaire Estée Lauder heir and GOP mega donor Ronald Lauder is considering backing Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) presidential bid, Politico reports, as some Republicans are reportedly losing confidence in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s electability after a series of missteps and declining poll numbers.
Ronald Lauder speaks during the annual Jerusalem Post conference at Gotham Hall in September. (Photo ... [+]
Lauder met with Scott in South Carolina last month and is considering donating to his campaign, according to Politico, citing three people with knowledge of the meeting.
Lauder, who once supported Trump and has also donated to DeSantis’s gubernatorial campaigns, plans to continue his conversation with Scott in the coming weeks and is also interested in speaking to other candidates, one of the Politico sources said.
The billionaire met with DeSantis prior to his official campaign launch in April, after declaring in November through a spokesperson he would not donate to Trump’s 2024 campaign.
We estimate Lauder’s net worth at $4.4 billion.
Lauder joins a number of wealthy and influential businessmen showing interest in Scott as an alternative to Trump and DeSantis. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison gave $30 million into a super PAC that supported Scott’s 2022 midterm re-election bid and is likely to double those contributions to support his presidential bid, CNBC reported in May, citing sources familiar with his plans. Many Republicans on Wall Street who do not want to see Trump re-elected and believe none of the candidates have yet to prove they can beat him in the primary have largely taken a “wait and see” approach to donating to 2024 campaigns, Politico reported previously. Some have begun to coalesce around Scott, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee and regularly attends meetings at major banks in New York. “Scott is pretty fantastic, and if he can perform the way I think he can he has a real chance . . . but it’s obviously a big hill to climb,” one anonymous banker told Politico in May.
The potential Lauder-Scott alliance is the latest sign that Republicans are disappointed in DeSantis, who was once seen as the most viable challenger to Trump. News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch has also soured on his candidacy, Rolling Stone reported Tuesday, citing sources who said he’s privately criticized DeSantis’s ability to connect with voters on a personal level. Fox News hosts have reflected Murdoch’s reported sentiment. A least three over the past two weeks have asked DeSantis to answer to his lagging poll numbers: On Sunday, Fox’s Maria Bartiromo read him snippets on air from a Politico Playbook article titled “Failure to Launch,” detailing his sagging poll numbers and statements from Republican strategists about his lack of momentum.
DeSantis has dismissed the concerns as “narratives . . . the media [has created because] they do not want me to be the nominee,” he told Bartiromo. In an interview with Fox’s Will Cain last week, he blamed “people like the corporate media” and Mexican president López Obrador, who recently called on Americans not to vote for DeSantis, for “targeting [him] as the person they don’t want to see as the candidate.”
DeSantis, who led Trump in some early polls prior to the Florida governor’s formal entrance into the race, saw his voter support plummet after Trump began to ramp up attacks on DeSantis early this year and used his own various legal woes to rally Republicans. DeSantis’s official campaign launch in April on Twitter Spaces was marred by glitches on the platform—and things haven’t improved. He was widely criticized for a video shared by his campaign during Pride Month that attacks Trump for his previous support of the LGBTQ community. He angered an influential grassroots women’s group in the early primary state of New Hampshire when he hosted a competing event at the same time as their annual fundraising luncheon last month. He also drew the ire of a local party leader in New York when he hosted a fundraiser in Rockland County without notifying county GOP Chair Lawrence Garvey, Politico reported in June. DeSantis’s orbit has begun to publicly acknowledge his struggle to gain traction—Steve Cortes, spokesperson for pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down, referred to Trump as the “runaway frontrunner” in a Twitter Spaces discussion earlier this month, declaring DeSantis as “way behind” and facing an “uphill battle.”
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