Oracle founder stakes more cash on a Marco Rubio presidency

Larry Ellison really likes Marco Rubio.

The founder of Oracle donated $1 million to a pro-Rubio super PAC last month, newly filed election reports shows. That's on top of the $3 million the tech magnate contributed to the group, Conservative Solutions PAC, last year.

The super PAC has spent heavily to boost Rubio's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, funding nearly $4 million in TV ads in South Carolina alone, according to a recent tally by the Wesleyan Media Project. Super PACs can raise unlimited sums from virtually any source but are barred from coordinating their spending with the candidates they back.

Other donors to the pro-Rubio super PAC in January included North Carolina discount retailer Art Pope, Richard DeVos, of the Michigan-based Amway fortune, and Randy Kendrick, whose husband co-owns Major League Baseball's Arizona Diamondbacks. They donated $250,000 each.

The January contributors to the super PAC underscore Rubio's ability to straddle various lanes of the Republican donor class — ranging from a Silicon Valley tycoon who is one of the world's richest people to figures such as Pope and Kendrick, who are aligned with libertarian-leaning industrialists Charles and David Koch.

Conservative Solutions PAC raised nearly $2.5 million last month and nearly $33 million for the entire election cycle.