Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler raised roughly $450,000 in the month after she was appointed to the seat and dipped into her wallet to add a first installment of $5 million into her campaign.
She starts the year with nearly $5.5 million in campaign cash as she prepares for a race against U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, the Rev. Raphael Warnock and other contenders in a free-for-all special election with no party primary.
The cash is a first phase of the more than $20 million that Loeffler has promised to spend on her campaign. Gov. Brian Kemp tapped the financial executive to the job in December, passing over Collins and other better-known Republicans in the process.
Loeffler, a former digital currency executive whose husband runs a major trading platform, leaned on a network of Atlanta business executives, according to a disclosure report that covers from Dec. 4 to the year’s end.
Among her donors are Waffle House chair Joe Rogers, real estate developer Steve Selig, former Home Depot executive Carol Tome, liquor distributor Don Leebern, Dentons macher Eric Tanenblatt and railroad chieftain Ben Tarbutton.
She also relied on a collection of Kemp allies and well-connected Capitol figures, including attorney Josh Belinfante and lobbyist Mark Middleton.
Another donor is Guy Millner, a former Republican candidate for Senate and governor in the 1990s who lives down the street from Loeffler’s Buckhead estate.
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