Republican megadonor Mercer family weighs backing Trump as they maintain massive war chest

One of the Republican Party’s most influential families may come off the sidelines to financially support Donald Trump’s latest White House run, after years of distancing themselves from him, according to people familiar with the matter.

Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, have not yet made a final decision on whether they’ll publicly back Trump, these people said. But the Mercers remain friendly with key players in Trump’s orbit, including former senior counselor Kellyanne Conway, according to some of the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of the thinking of the notoriously private Mercer family.

The Mercers gave millions to a super PAC and other efforts to boost Trump in 2016, before very noticeably stepping back around 2018.

A representative for the Mercer family did not return a request for comment.

As they weigh their options on whether to get involved with helping Trump again, the Mercer family has a practically unparalleled private war chest ready to be deployed.

The Mercers came into the pivotal 2024 presidential election cycle with just more than $88 million stashed away in their private nonprofit, the Mercer Family Foundation.

If they decide to fund efforts to support Trump, like they did during the 2016 election, this money could provide critical resources for influential conservative political causes, according to experts who reviewed the documents.

“The Mercer Family Foundation is sitting on a huge endowment that can—and likely will—be directed towards pushing politics and policy to the extreme right,” Brendan Fischer, a deputy executive director at special interests watchdog Documented, told CNBC after he reviewed the group’s 990 tax return. 

The $88.4 million that the foundation amassed at the end of 2022 was in part due to a sale last year of more…