Report: Peter Thiel to Focus on AZ Senate Race as Ohio's J.D. Vance Is Well Positioned

Venture capitalist and GOP megadonor Peter Thiel has reportedly indicated that he will focus on helping Arizona Republican Blake Masters in his campaign’s final days as he believes Republican J.D. Vance is well positioned to win in Ohio.

According to CNBC’s Brian Schwartz, Thiel, who has spent his time helping Masters and Vance, has indicated to his “deep-pocketed political network” that he is mostly done helping the Ohio Republican and will focus now on Arizona and beating Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly.

At a recent fundraiser at his Los Angeles home for Masters, the GOP megadonor reportedly told people that he believes Vance is “on track” to win Ohio’s open Senate seat, which is currently held by retiring Republican Sen. Rob Portman.

Schwartz wrote that, according to a person familiar with Thiel’s conversations at the event, the person said, “Peter said, ‘That race [Ohio Senate] is done in my mind.’” The same person noted that he also said, “‘We just have to get Blake over the finish line.’”

Thiel, the first major investor in Facebook, which has since rebranded as “Meta,” stepped down from the board of directors for the social media giant earlier this year to focus on supporting Republican candidates in the 2022 midterms, such as Vance and Masters. He also already spent millions of dollars of his own money to help the two candidates.

In fact, the two seats Thiel has been spending money on could decide the majority in the Senate, which currently sits at 50-50, with the Democrats in the majority due to Kamala Harris having the tiebreaking vote as vice president. Republicans only need to net one seat to take the majority in the Senate and net five to take the majority in the House.

CNBC noted:

Thiel did not tell fundraiser guests whether he plans to give more money to a pro-Masters super PAC. But his decision to tell guests to focus more on Masters than Vance shows he could still deploy more cash in the Arizona Senate race with just over a month until Election Day.

…

At the Masters fundraising event, Thiel told attendees that Vance no longer needs the boost he required during the GOP primary because most polls show him leading Ryan, according to those familiar with Thiel’s conversations. A RealClearPolitics polling average shows Vance leading Ryan by more than 1 percentage point. Ryan has raised over $21 million while Vance has brought in just over $3.6 million, according to the nonpartisan OpenSecrets.

Thiel acknowledged that Masters trails Kelly in many public polls, and needs a massive cash infusion to keep up with the incumbent’s fundraising juggernaut, these people explained. Kelly’s campaign has raised more than $50 million while Masters has taken in just over $4 million, OpenSecrets says.

There were at least 40 people in attendance at the fundraiser for Masters at Thiel’s home, with roughly a dozen more who contributed but were unable to make the event, according to the event organizers, Schwartz reported.

If successful, with the event costing between $1,500 to $5,800, Masters could have picked up between $75,000 to $290,000 in campaign contributions.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.