CINCINNATI — Chris Bortz and Scott Knox come from opposite ends of the political spectrum, but they agree on this much: Our democracy has enough at risk to set personal records for campaign contributions.
“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think that this is such a critical time right now,” said Bortz, CEO of Towne Construction Services of Batavia. “I’m very concerned about the direction the Democratic Party is taking the country.”
Bortz said he’s spent more than $100,000 in the presidential election cycle that began last January, while Knox estimates his total spending at $40,000.
“The importance is so high to me,” said Knox, an attorney and activist for LGBTQ rights. “I’ve never felt more afraid for our democracy.”
Their spending is a drop in the ocean. But it’s contributing to a record level of total spending in the 2024 election cycle, according to Open Secrets. The nonprofit campaign-finance tracker predicts $15.9 billion will be spent in the two years ending Dec. 31. That’s about $800 million more costly than the 2020 campaign.
Harris leads Trump in local fundraising
The WCPO 9 I-Team has been analyzing Federal Election Commission data to learn which local donors are giving the most and how their contributions compare to the rest of the country. The I-Team also interviewed Bortz and Knox to learn why donors part with their hard-earned dollars.
The FEC records show Vice President Kamala Harris raised $669 million nationwide through Aug. 21, $1.8 million of it from Greater Cincinnati. Former President Donald Trump raised $308 million during the same period, $1.6 million from Greater Cincinnati.
The Harris campaign raised $1 million from local donors in the six weeks after July 21, when President Joe Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed Harris as the Democratic nominee. That enabled Harris to surge past Trump in local fundraising.
But those numbers only tell part of the story.
OpenSecrets predicts outside spending will reach $5 billion this year, as independent groups try to influence not only the presidential race but key elections in the House and Senate.
In addition, presidential candidates aren’t just filling their own campaign coffers when they court donors in Cincinnati and elsewhere.
Harris and Trump both encouraged gifts to leadership PACs and joint fundraising committees, which allow donors to indirectly support presidential candidates by letting them distribute cash to political parties and key congressional races.
Joint fundraising committees active here
Cincinnati residents have donated $565,000 so far to the Harris Victory Fund. It accepts contributions up to $926,300 from individuals but only distributes $3,300 to the Harris campaign itself, according to its fundraising documents. The rest goes to Democratic Party affiliates in all 50 states.
The Trump 47 Committee collected $3.7 million from Cincinnati area residents this year, thanks to a May 15 fundraiser attended by the former president in Indian Hill.
Bortz, a former councilman, was among those who attended that event after paying $50,000 for the minimum entry fee.
“I walked away with a very different impression of President Trump than I had before I went,” Bortz said. “I could see the warmth, the compassion, the empathy that he has.”
Like the Harris Victory Fund, the Trump 47 Committee distributes a small portion of total proceeds to the candidate’s campaign. Its fundraising documents say Trump's general election account gets the first $6,600, while the next $5,000 goes to Save America, a leadership PAC that Trump has used to pay his legal bills. The rest of the money goes to Republican Party affiliates, including a “legal proceedings account” that the GOP established for the former president.
Bortz said he wasn’t aware that about $12,000 of his ticket paid for Trump’s legal expenses, but he isn’t bothered by it either.
“He’s had to defend himself against a host of ridiculous (charges). I am a lawyer by training. The cases that were brought against the president are shocking,” Bortz said.
Knox doesn’t see it that way.
“It’s reprehensible,” Knox said. “I think it’s remarkable in our country that we’re in a time where one of our presidential candidates spends much of his time raising money for himself and for his legal expenses because he’s done so much wrong.”
Spreading the wealth
The Trump 47 Committee is the most successful fundraiser to solicit local donors this year, but it only claimed about 10% of the money contributed by people listing a Cincinnati address.
FEC records show Cincinnati residents donated $27 million to more than 1,000 different fundraising organizations since the start of the presidential campaign cycle in January 2023. More than $5 million went to national political parties. Roughly $3 million went to the Ohio Senate race between incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Bernie Moreno.
About 13% of those Cincinnati donations came from two well-known Cincinnati families. Five members of the Lindner family, whose wealth comes from Cincinnati-based American Financial Group Inc., contributed $3.3 million. Three members of the Rosenthal family, which founded and later sold F+W Publications, contributed a combined $385,000.
Other large local donors include David and Ginger Warner of Indian Hill, with combined contributions of $310,800. Ronald Wilheim, president of the long-term care division at CommuniCare Health Services, donated $358,265 during the 2024 election cycle.
Seventeen of the region’s top 20 donors gave to the Trump campaign. But Harris got more people to donate. Her 3,413 contributors spent an average of $523 per person. Trump’s 3,090 donors gave $513 on average.
Those numbers show Bortz and Knox are well above average when it comes to local campaign contributions. But it doesn’t explain why people give.
“That’s what we’re supposed to do as Americans,” Bortz said. “We’re supposed to engage. We’re supposed to participate.”
One donor's journey
Bortz was a member of Cincinnati’s Charter Party when he served on city council from 2005 to 2011. He worked with Republicans and Democrats to advance the city’s streetcar project and develop the Go Cincinnati development initiative. But after leaving council, Bortz said he noticed “a leftward lurch” in the Democratic Party.
“I still believe I’m an independent,” Bortz said. “I’m going to vote for the person and the policies over party. But what I’ve seen is the movement in the Republican party under Trump has been back to those fundamental, basic American principals, whereas the left has become kind of wild-eyed, radical, cultural Marxist, everything is about identity politics.”
Federal records show Bortz donated $1,500 to Mitt Romney’s unsuccessful campaign against President Barack Obama. He backed former HP executive Carly Fiorina in the 2016 Republican primary before contributing $450 to the Trump campaign in the 2016 General Election.
After making no presidential donations in 2020, Bortz got more engaged in the Trump campaign after befriending Cincinnati resident and Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance.
“I got to know him when he was first running for Senate and was very impressed with him,” Bortz said. “He’s a brilliant guy. He’s got very good ideas about what government’s role really is and how he can serve. The more he gets into his space the as the vice-presidential nominee, I think, the better he gets.”
'I'm going to affect more votes'
An attorney since 1985, Knox has described himself as an accidental activist because he began his career in employment law and asbestos litigation but shifted to discrimination cases when the AIDS crisis exposed a lack of legal protections for the gay community.
In the 1990s, he led the fight against Article XII, a charter amendment that prevented the city from considering sexual orientation in matters of workplace and housing discrimination. And along the way, he supported progressive candidates in local elections.
Federal Election Commission records show Knox contributed $2,000 to John Kerry in 2004, his first presidential donation. That was followed by $10,000 for Barack Obama in 2012, $3,000 for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and $1,000 for Joe Biden in 2020.
This year, he upped the ante to $7,000, with a pair of donations to Biden’s campaign in March that moved to the Harris campaign after she became the Democratic nominee on Aug. 5. Since Harris joined the race, Knox contributed $2,000 to the Democratic fundraising group ActBlue, earmarked for the Ohio Democratic Party.
But he hasn’t contributed more to the Harris campaign.
“My approach didn’t change a whole lot,” Knox said. “I got more optimistic.”
In addition to supporting candidates, Knox donated $6,000 to Focus for Democracy Action, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. It helps campaigns target spending in ways that produce more votes in key competitive races.
“I wanted to donate about $2,000, but every time I went onto one of their fundraising calls, they inspired me so much, I kept giving more,” Knox said. “My hope was that by donating there, I’m going to affect more votes.”
'A threat to our republic'
Although Knox and Bortz agree on the importance of this year’s election, they disagree on just about everything else.
“I don’t understand bright Republicans who are voting for him for economic reasons and believe that everything they hear negative about Trump and Vance is just biased,” Knox said. “He’s the chaos candidate. I haven’t talked to anyone that loves him. I’ve talked to people who will vote for him because they think he will be better for their pocketbook.”
Bortz urges Trump’s critics to cast a wider net for news sources and “draw their own informed conclusions” about which party is a threat to democracy.
“Trump already served in office and it wasn’t the end of democracy,” said Bortz. “On the other hand, let’s look at the left. What are they trying to do? Well, they want to eliminate the Electoral College. They want to pack the Supreme Court. They want to eliminate the Senate filibuster. They appear not to like the First Amendment anymore. They don’t like the Second Amendment. Well, that’s eroding our national identity. And that is a threat to our republic.”
