- Mehmet Oz spent nearly $27 million on his failed US Senate run.
- The Pennsylvanian Republican is far from the only self-funder to have lost his midterm race.
Republican Mehmet Oz spent nearly $27 million of his reality TV fortune on his failed effort to win the crucial US Senate race in Pennsylvania.
But the TV doctor-turned-political-aspirant is far from the only wealthy American to end the year with less in his or her bank account because of big-time electoral ambitions that fell flat.
According to an Insider review of federal and state campaign spending, 16 out of the 22 top-spending candidates in the midterm elections lost their races.
Combined, the 16 also-rans spent over $223 million of their own money — just over half of the nearly $443 the top self-funding candidates spent this cycle.
This overall poor midterm showing illustrates a long-term trend in US politics: only a small fraction of candidates who fill their campaign coffers with their own money actually win office.
Most of these 16 losers never made it to the 2022 general election, losing in their primaries. Oz, whom Democrat John Fetterman defeated last week, was one of just three major self-funders to emerge from a primary before losing anyway in the general election.
The other two are Tim Michels, who co-owns Wisconsin's largest construction company, and Trudy Busch Valentine, an heir to the Anheuser-Busch brewing fortune.
Michels was unable to knock off Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers in a key midterm win for Democrats. Busch-Valentine contributed more than $16.3 million to her own campaign, even cutting a $2 million check to herself on October 31 days before Republican state Attorney General Eric Schmitt delivered a double-digit drubbing in Missouri's US Senate race.
As for the primary losers in Election 2022, Karrin Taylor Robson spent the most, at nearly $18.5 million. Robson, who was endorsed by retiring Gov. Doug Ducey in her bid for Arizona's governorship, lost the Republican nomination to Trump-backed Kari Lake. (The race remains too close to call.)
There are certainly exceptions to the rule.
Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois remains far and away the largest spender of the 2022 midterms — and he easily won re-election. An heir to the vast Hyatt hotel fortune, Pritzker will easily go down in history as one of the most successful self-funders in US history having already spent more than $300 million on his two successful gubernatorial runs.
Beyond Pritzker's $152 million, the next largest successful self-funder is yet another Democratic governor. In a battle of the self-funders, Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut spent about $22 million to fend off businessman Bob Stefanowski in a rematch that saw Stefanowski spend $12 million of his own money.
Of the other major self-funders in the election, only Democrats were successful. They are Rep. David Trone of Maryland (roughly $12.6 million); Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado ($12.1 million); Rep.-elect Shri Thanedar of Michigan ($6.1 million) and Rep.-elect Dan Goldman of New York (roughly $4.9 million).
Read Insider's entire list of the 22 largest self-funders in the 2022 midterm elections.
Note: The final list of self-funders could change as the final election reports are filed for state and federal races in the weeks to come.