Peter Thiel is betting on J.D. Vance. Why does he care about Ohio's U.S. Senate race?
One of the most significant forces in Ohio's U.S. Senate race is not a candidate.
He's a Silicon Valley billionaire.
PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel inserted himself into the contest to replace retiring Sen. Rob Portman and spent millions to prop up his preferred candidate, J.D. Vance. The money, funneled to a super PAC, helped Vance's allies sell his story and made him competitive against wealthy Republican primary opponents.
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Now, Vance is taking on Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan. Vance is trailing behind Ryan in both fundraising and spending, and a joint fundraising committee for the "Hillbilly Elegy" author is raising money in part to pay off primary campaign debt.
It's unclear whether Thiel will put more money into the Ohio race this fall, but he's undoubtedly helped shape the playing field so far.
It all begs the question: Why does Thiel care?
Who is Peter Thiel?
Thiel is a German-American entrepreneur and venture capitalist who co-founded Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund, in addition to PayPal. He was the first outside investor in Facebook and wielded significant influence over the company and Silicon Valley as a whole.
"His philosophy prizes growth and says tech founders are a privileged class that should be protected and nurtured," said Max Chafkin, a journalist and author of the Thiel biography "The Contrarian."
A spokesman for Thiel did not respond to a request for comment.
Thiel's interest in politics began during his time at Stanford University, where he took up the mantle of "right-wing provocateur" after being targeted by liberal students, Chafkin wrote. He joined the College Republicans and helped launch the Stanford Review, a conservative, student-run newspaper that thrived on generating controversy.
In a 2009 column, Thiel expressed dismay about the state of politics and said, "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible."
"I believe that politics is way too intense," Thiel wrote. "That's why I’m a libertarian. Politics gets people angry, destroys relationships, and polarizes people's vision: the world is us versus them; good people versus the other. Politics is about interfering with other people’s lives without their consent."
Once Thiel became successful in the business sector, he had the resources to affect change in the political sphere. His biggest bet? A last-minute donation to former President Donald Trump in 2016, which came shortly after the "Access Hollywood" tapes sent the campaign spiraling.
Fast forward five years and Thiel would gamble on another risky candidate: Vance.
How are Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance connected?
Thiel and Vance's relationship is rooted in the private sector. The Senate candidate worked as a principal for Thiel's Mithril Capital, and Thiel in turn invested in Vance's Ohio-based venture capital firm, Narya. Both company names are references to lore in the "Lord of the Rings" series.
Vance is Thiel's kind of candidate, according to Chafkin. Both men have taken a hard line on immigration and criticized technology companies for regulating online speech. They've embraced Trump's nationalist ideology. Vance isn't afraid to say something controversial, and he's promised to challenge the political status quo.
"Thiel has been very good and very smart about attaching himself to smart, ambitious people, especially smart, ambitious conservatives," Chafkin said.
Vance's campaign declined to comment.
Thiel gave $10 million to the pro-Vance PAC Protect Ohio Values in the spring of 2021 when a Vance primary victory was far from assured. The author, who lives in Cincinnati, entered the race with some notoriety from his memoir, but he also had less name recognition and fewer Ohio political connections than some of his opponents.
Thiel's support gave Protect Ohio Values the resources to tout Vance and defend him against attacks while alleviating some of the burden on Vance's campaign. According to the PAC's Medium website, the group did extensive research on Vance and his opponents, suggested ad language and helped recruit campaign staff.
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That work prompted an FEC complaint alleging the PAC illegally provided resources to Vance's campaign – a claim its leaders dispute.
"(Thiel's) willingness to commit early and in an unprecedented way let us do things no other candidate super PAC had done to that point," said Luke Thompson, a GOP strategist who runs Protect Ohio Values.
Thiel donated another $5 million to Vance's PAC after Trump endorsed the candidate weeks before the May primary, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
The billionaire is also backing the president of his foundation, Blake Masters, in Arizona's U.S. Senate race. Masters, who ran Thiel's foundation until March, recently ran a campaign ad promoting border technology that's financially linked to Thiel, the Arizona Republic reported. The ad calls for the U.S. to "militarize the border."
Chafkin said Thiel wants to be a patron to the Trump wing of the Republican Party, but he expects the venture capitalist to be strategic about it. For this election cycle, Masters and Vance fit the bill.
"These are his bets, and he’ll continue to support them," Chafkin said. "I would not be shocked if he goes back into his wallet closer to the general...if he thinks it’ll make a difference to Vance’s candidacy."
Haley BeMiller is a reporter for the Paste BN Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.