Gingrich donor boasts of more to come Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino magnate whose family has spent $11m backing Newt Gingrich for the Republican presidential nomination, says he may give "another $10m or $100m" to the candidate, a boast which underlines how the rules of campaign finances are being rewritten for the 2012 election. The weight of Mr Adelson's comments, made in an interview to Forbes, was reinforced by the latest release of campaign funding data, which show wealthy donors still overwhelming traditional funding sources. The new super-political action committees, which can raise and spend unlimited funds backing candidates as long as they do not co-ordinate with them, continued to outraise and outspend the formal campaigns in January. The figures from the Federal Election Commission also spell danger for Mitt Romney, long the Republican frontrunner, who has faced successive challenges from numerous alternative candidates questioning his conservative credentials. The latest challenger is Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, who has surged to the top of national polls of conservative voters and even leads Mr Romney in the state in which he was born, Michigan. The FEC figures show that Mr Romney's campaign and an allied super-Pac, Restore Our Future, collectively spent almost three times what they took in in January. The Romney campaign took in $6.5m and the super-Pac $6.6m for a combined $13.1m, but the so-called "burn rate" was much higher, with $32.7m flowing out - much of it on negative attacks adverts against Newt Gingrich in Florida. The heavy spending worked in the short term for Mr Romney - Mr Gingrich was beaten badly in Florida and has yet to regain his footing - but it bodes ill for Republicans in November. With the fight for the nomination likely to be drawn-out, such spending would drain any Republican candidates" war chest for the head-to-head battle against Barack Obama. The Republican super-Pacs for the four main candidates, Messrs, Romney, Gingrich, Santorum and Ron Paul, the libertarian Texas congressman, together raised $22.1m. By contrast, Priorities USA, the super-Pac backing Mr Obama, raised just $59,000 in January, something the White House had in mind when it recently announced that administration officials would no longer shun the body and attend its fundraisers. Mr Adelson, whose net worth is about $25bn, is the biggest single donor for this election to conservative super-Pacs, along with Harold Simmons, a Texas businessman. He said he was "against very wealthy people attempting to or influencing elections ... but as long as it's do-able I'm going to do it, because I know that guys like [George] Soros have been doing it for years, if not decades." They stay below the radar by creating a network of corporations to funnel their money ... I'm proud of what I do and I'm not looking to escape recognition. If, as expected, Mr Gingrich is forced out of the race, Mr Adelson suggested he would support other Republicans to stop Mr Obama's "socialist-style" policies. Mr Soros helped transform campaign finance, and energise wealthy conservatives such as Mr Adelson, when he donated $24m over two years ahead of the 2004 election in an effort to defeat George W. Bush. The money went to non-profit bodies that could advocate on issues but not campaigning for or against specific candidates. Recent court decisions now allow super-Pacs to campaign directly. To the frustration of Democratic fundraisers, Mr Soros has so far stayed on the sideline in this campaign. A range of other business leaders figures prominently among donors to the super-Pacs. Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, donated $1.7m to Endorse Liberty, Mr Paul's super-Pac, on top of $900,000 he gave last year.