Paloma Partners is a Connecticut-based hedge fund founded and managed by Donald Sussman with $9.5 billion in active investments. ¹ The firm’s management and employees (most prominently Sussman himself) are large political donors who give almost exclusively to Democratic candidates and left-of-center organization. ²

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, persons associated with Paloma Partners formed the tenth-biggest overall donor organization in America from 1990 to 2020, with $96 million donated. As of February 3, 2020, Paloma was currently the single-largest organization associated with donors to federal political candidates in America in the 2020 election cycle, with over $14 million donated exclusively to Democratic candidates and organizations. ³

Donald Sussman

Sussman was born in Miami, FL. He attended Columbia University and then attained an MBA from New York University. After college, Sussman worked at Titan Industrial Corporation and the New York City-based law firm, Gelberg & Abrams. In 1981, Sussman founded Paloma Partners with $3 billion in assets. ⁴

Sussman is an ideological liberal and supports the Democratic Party. He is particularly concerned with environmentalist policy. ⁵

Sussman is one of the largest personal donors to the Democratic Party. As of the first quarter of 2020, Sussman is the single largest donor in the country (excluding self-funding political candidates), having given almost $865,000 exclusively to Democratic candidates. In 2018, he was the fifth-largest donor in the country, having given $27 million exclusively to Democratic candidates and left-of-center groups. ⁶

In addition to managing Paloma, Sussman is on the board of trustees of Carnegie Hall⁷ and ProPublica. ⁸

Sussman’s personal net worth is estimated at $500 million. ⁹ In 2019, Worth named Sussman one of the ten most powerful hedge fund managers in America. ¹⁰

Political Contributions

Thanks in large part to Sussman’s personal contributions, people associated with Paloma have constituted one of the largest organizational contributors to federal Democratic candidates and organizations over the last thirty years according to the Center for Responsive Politics. ¹¹

Throughout the 1990s, Paloma-associated political donations steadily increased from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 2002, donations spiked to $1.2 million. After falling for the next four years, donations steadily rose again to over $3 million in 2014. ¹² In 2016, these donations jumped to over $41 million, before declining to $28 million in 2018. Persons associated with Paloma have already donated $14 million in the 2020 election cycle. ¹³

During the 2016, 2018, and 2020 election cycles, Paloma was the fourth-, seventh-, and outright largest organization associated with political donors in the CRP database. Prior to 2016, Paloma was never in the top-50 largest such organizations. ¹⁴

Paloma was the single largest contributor to the 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, with $21,613,800 donated. ¹⁵

In 2018, Paloma was the hedge fund associated with the largest amount of political contributions, surpassing Soros Fund Management, the hedge fund of billionaire Democratic donor, George Soros. ¹⁶

In the 2020 cycle, Paloma-associated contributions have mostly gone to Democratic Congressional candidates and PACs. The largest recipients have been the House Majority PAC and Senate Majority PAC, both of which received $4 million. Priorities USA Action, a liberal Super PAC founded by former Obama administration staffers, received $3 million. PACRONYM, a Super PAC opposed to President Donald Trump, received $1 million. Of the 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) received the most in Paloma-associated contributions as of February 2020. ¹⁷

From 2002 to 2020, no more than 1% of Paloma-associated donations went to Republican candidates and organizations. ¹⁸

Criticisms

Paloma has been criticized along with other politically active hedge funds for having undue influence over the electoral process. Persons associated with hedge funds like Paloma, Soros Fund Management, Tom Steyer’s Farralon Capital, and James Simons’s Renaissance Technologies have steadily increased their political contributions, especially since the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump. In 2018, half of the top-ten biggest political contributors were hedge funds, including Paloma. A majority of the top-15 biggest hedge fund-associated donors supported Democratic candidates and organizations. ¹⁹²⁰

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