Helicopters noisily occupied some airspace above central Woodside on Aug. 29 with the arrival, via ground transportation, of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Mr. Trump visited the Winding Way home of Saul Fox, chief executive of the private equity firm Fox Paine and Company for a fundraiser.
Tickets were going for $25,000 apiece and about 40 guests attended, news reports said. Accompanying Mr. Trump was former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, according to ABC7 News.
Mr. Fox is a regular donor to Republican candidates, according to the OpenSecrets.org website, part of the Center for Responsive Politics. Recipients include Republican political action committees and the campaigns of Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, campaign-finance-reform activist and professor Lawrence Lessig, and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Local fundraising for Mr. Trump in the 2016 campaign is noteworthy for the paucity of contributors. Of the contributions made, most are small by comparison to Mr. Romney’s campaign.
Among donors to Mr. Trump, Mr. Fox stands out. Twelve donors listing Woodside addresses have given him 22 contributions that, as of July 2016, added up to just $12,000, according to OpenSecrets. Most of those donations are for around $250. Only Mr. Fox gave Mr. Trump the maximum of $5,400 — $2,700 each for the primary and general elections.
Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, by contrast, shows 292 donations listing the Woodside ZIP code, including 94 who gave the maximum at the time of $2,500, OpenSecrets data shows.
Mr. Fox is also nearly alone in his level of support for Mr. Trump within the Almanac’s circulation area, where he is joined in making a $2,700 donation only by Teresa Bettinger, who listed a Menlo Park address. Ms. Bettinger’s record shows just one such donation.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is outpacing Mr. Trump by a huge margin with respect to local fundraising. OpenSecrets lists 531 donations of $2,700 from addresses listed in Woodside, Atherton, Menlo Park and Portola Valley.
Of the 2,800 local donations Ms. Clinton received overall, Menlo Park and Atherton lead in maximum donations with around 150 each, with Portola Valley and Woodside each at about 120.
