Donald Trump Donors Wade Into Crucial Palm Beach County Election

Three billionaires, who have backed former President Donald Trump, have donated nearly $500,000 to a Florida Republican candidate seeking to be the top prosecutor in the former president’s home county.
Trader Thomas Peterffy, hedge fund manager John Paulson and hotel and casino mogul Steve Wynn have all contributed to the campaign of private attorney Sam Stern in recent weeks. Stern, a former state and federal prosecutor, is running to be Palm Beach County state attorney. His main opponent is Democrat Alexcia Cox in November’s election.
Paulson gave $150,000 to a political action committee linked to Stern in late September, and Peterffy donated $250,000 on September 30, according to figures recorded in the Florida Division of Elections. A $125,000 sum was also made by Wynn on October 1. All three men have previously given money to Trump’s presidential election campaigns.
The donations were first reported by reporter Jason Garcia in his Seeking Rents Substack on Sunday. Garcia said that a top prosecutor working in a county—Palm Beach—where Trump resides in his Mar-a-Lago resort could make it “one of the most uniquely important positions in all of Florida government.”
“Cox, for her part, also has a political committee that allows her to raise unlimited amounts of money from donors,'” Garcia wrote. “But ‘Friends of Alexcia Cox’ has raised just under $120,000—less than each of Stern’s billionaires have given all by themselves.”
According to Garcia, Peterffy, Paulson and Wynn all own estates along what is known as Palm Beach’s “Billionaire’s Row,” where Mar-a-Lago is also located.
Newsweek has contacted the offices of Paulson, Peterffy, Wynn for comment via email.
Trump has not publicly endorsed anyone in the race for the next Palm Beach County state attorney. In September, Stern had criticized the State Attorney’s Office for entering an agreement with a local man who had been arrested for making online threats about Trump and running mate JD Vance.
“Just two days after the second attempted assassination of President Trump, the Palm Beach State Attorney’s Office has given a pass to a man who threatened to kill President Trump,” Stern wrote, in part. according to the Sun Sentinel.
In January 2021, Trump commuted the sentence of a former client of Stern, eye doctor Salomon Melgen, wrote Garcia.
Melgen was sentenced to 17 years in prisons in 2018 after he was convicted on 67 counts of health care fraud and other related charges.
A White House statement at the time cited how “numerous patients and friends testify to his generosity in treating all patients, especially those unable to pay or unable to afford healthcare insurance.”
It was reported in March that Trump was considering Paulson as Treasury secretary in the Republican’s next potential administration.
Trump’s campaign team denied the reports that discussions about who might serve in the next administration were taking place then.
Peterffy—who in 2023, before primary season began, had said a second Trump presidency would be “incalculable and unpredictable” —and Wynn were also present at a private fundraising dinner in Aspen, Colorado, for Trump’s 2024 campaign in August.
Guests were required to donate between $25,000 to $500,000 per couple to attend the event, reported The Guardian in early October.
The current Palm Beach state attorney, Dave Aronberg, announced he would not be seeking a fourth term in office in June 2023.