Billionaires have been flooding the midterms with cash, but one of the GOP’s most reliable megadonors just went silent

(Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris—Getty Images for Museum of Modern Art)

For months, billionaires have been funneling swaths of money into Republican midterm campaigns. But a New York Times report published Tuesday shows one of the most prominent GOP donors has quietly backed off.

Ronald Lauder, the billionaire heir to cosmetics conglomerate Estée Lauder and longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, has pumped tens of millions of dollars into Republican campaigns over the past couple of decades, campaign donation records show. So much so that the Times even referred to him as a “one-man bank for Republicans in New York.”