Billionaire heiress Elizabeth Simons is sending substantial financial support to Democrats’ push to win back the House, contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the party’s campaign operation while also funding socialist causes and candidates that have unsettled some Democratic establishment figures.
Simons, who earlier gave $250,000 to a super PAC supporting Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has contributed $354,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s main campaign arm for House races. She has also donated thousands of dollars more to individual Democratic House candidates during the current election cycle.
Her spending creates an unusual political dynamic: Simons is helping finance the same Democratic leadership apparatus that is working to keep the party’s ascendant progressive wing from gaining too much control.
“I can see why a lot of the very woke left is lining up with Hakeem [Speaker Jeffries] because the goal is winning the House,” said one longtime Democratic fundraiser.
The DCCC is led by Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), a member of the centrist New Democrat Coalition. The committee operates under the broader direction of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is in line to take the speaker’s gavel if Democrats regain control of the chamber. Republicans currently hold a slim 218-212 majority.
Still, Simons is far from a traditional Democratic establishment donor. She has spent millions of dollars supporting progressive education efforts and has backed left-wing candidates, including Mamdani.
Simons serves as chairwoman of the board of directors of the Heising-Simons Foundation, which she co-founded with her husband, Mark Heising. Her father, James Simons, founded the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies and had an estimated net worth of $31.4 billion when he died in 2024.
Last August, Simons wrote a $250,000 check to New Yorkers for Lower Costs, making her donation the largest contribution to the group supporting democratic socialist Mamdani’s campaign against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
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Her “woke math” support came in the form of $1.7 million in contributions by the foundation to the Racial Justice in Early Mathematics Project at Chicago’s Erikson Institute.
She and three other California heavy hitters have given to such causes as anti-incarceration prosecutors and cash bail opponents — donating $22 million to ballot measures and candidates in the 2022 election cycle, according to Politico.
“Democrats aren’t just embracing a socialist, anti-police agenda, they’re being bankrolled to do it. Every Democrat backing this radical, pro-crime platform will answer to voters this fall,” blasted Emily Tuttle, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the GOP’s campaign arm.
Simons and three other California megadonors — Patty Quillin, Quinn Delaney and Kaitlyn Krieger — have contributed nearly $4 million to House Democrats and Democratic committees this election cycle, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data.
Simons and her foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment on her contributions and strategy.
Quillin is founder of Meadow Fund, a donor-advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and is married to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. Krieger is married to Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger, and the pair run a nonprofit focused on criminal justice issues.
Delaney is founder and board chair of the Akonadi Foundation, which “supports the development of powerful social change movements to eliminate structural racism and create a racially just society.” She is married to California real estate developer Wayne Jordan.
During the same period, Quillin gave more than $300,000 to the DCCC — but also contributed $650,000 to the Working Families Party, which is one of several groups committed to taking down the party establishment.
The group crowed last week in a release about adding Michigan House primary winner Will Lawrence and US Senate primary winner Abul El-Sayed “to the growing list of WFP-backed candidates winning grueling primaries in purple seats.”
