- By Marcus White | Examiner staff writer
- Jul 18, 2023 Updated 52 min ago (SFExaminer.com)
Days after Florida Gov. Ron Desantis filmed a video denigrating The City’s street conditions, San Francisco Giants owner Charles Johnson gave the most money possible to the Republican presidential candidate.
Johnson, a 90-year-old Florida resident, donated the maximum $6,600 — $3,300 for the Republican primary and $3,300 for the general election — to DeSantis’ campaign on June 30, according to quarterly Federal Election Commission filings due last weekend. SFGATE first reported on Johnson’s donations.
The Giants’ largest shareholder since 2011, Johnson is among the world’s 500 wealthiest people, according to Bloomberg. He’s also a longtime Republican donor whose campaign contributions have attracted local and national scrutiny.
In 2018, Johnson donated $1,000 to a pro-Donald Trump super PAC that aired a racist radio ad targeting Black voters in Arkansas. Johnson later called the ad “unacceptable” and said that he “strongly (condemned) any form of racism and in no way (condoned) the advertisement that was created by this entity.” Johnson’s attorney said the donation was returned.
That same year, Johnson and his wife, Ann, requested a refund of their $5,400 donation to Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith after she said on the campaign trail that she would be in the front row of a “public hanging” if a supporter invited her to one. Mississippi has a lengthy, ongoing history of lynchings of Black men and teenagers.
Johnson and his wife said in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection that they would “reject and denounce any individuals, candidates or elected officials who do not honor our Constitution” after campaign finance documents showed he donated to Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert and other politicians who questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election.
But Johnson has continued donating to such politicians, including a $15,800 contribution to a PAC backing West Virginia Republican Rep. Alex Mooney in April. Mooney was one of 147 congressional Republicans who voted to sustain at least one objection to the 2020 election results.
DeSantis hasn’t publicly said if he thinks President Joe Biden was the rightful winner that year, but officials in his gubernatorial administration have routinely met with activists who sought to overturn the election.
The 44-year-old presidential hopeful has also criticized San Francisco, the city where Johnson’s Giants play, as a staple of his efforts to unseat Donald Trump as the Republican nominee in 2024.
Ten days before Johnson contributed to his campaign, DeSantis recorded a video on the corner of Geary and Hyde streets where he claimed he had “seen so much riff-raff running around” what he called “the once great city of San Francisco.”
“The City is not vibrant anymore. It’s really collapsed because of leftist policies, and these policies have caused people to flee this area,” DeSantis said.
Johnson was one of several donors to maximize their contributions to DeSantis’ campaign. An NBC News analysis found that about $14 million, or nearly two-thirds of the Florida governor’s total fundraising, came from donors who can no longer donate to his primary campaign.
