Sheldon Adelson Loses Bet with America

If Nate Silver is the biggest winner of the 2012 American election cycle, then Sheldon Adelson is its biggest loser. Some $70 million of Adelson’s cash, mere drops in an ocean, went into the pot for candidates that didn’t win out in their elections. Allison Hoffman, who has the highest-approval rating of anyone in Washington, D.C., explains.

But let’s talk about the night’s biggest loser: not Mitt Romney, but Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino mogul who gambled at least $70 million on Romney’s candidacy. Adelson’s acumen as an entrepreneur has allowed him to rebuild his fortune several times over, but his track record as a political investor is notably weak. His first horse in the 2012 race was former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose campaign imploded repeatedly before he withdrew for good last May. As a board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Adelson doubled down and gave millions to partisan Jewish groups to pay for television ads, robocalls, and print mailers to peel away Jewish support for Obama, apparently with only a negligible yield.

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