Contribution of the Week: Kate Brown Gets a Big Check from a Big-Deal Californian

Kevin Peng Xu has become an enormous political donor.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown attends the Pendleton Round-Up in 2017. (Office of the Governor)
By Nigel Jaquiss

Contribution of the Week

How much: $25,000

Who got it? Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat seeking re-election.

Who gave it? As first reported by the Eugene Register-Guard, Kevin Peng Xu, CEO of Los Angeles- and Beijing-based MEBO International, which makes burn treatments and other regenerative medical supplements.

Why is it interesting? Xu, the son of MEBO's founder, has become an enormous political donor, giving nearly $350,000 to various campaigns in 2016. As a mark of his prominence in Democratic circles, Xu attended the last state dinner at the Obama White House in 2016. Observers think the governor's main GOP challenger, state Rep. Knute Buehler (R-Bend), could raise $10 million—a number Brown cannot match unless she can attract big, out-of-state donors such as Xu.

What does Brown's campaign say? "Kevin Xu is a nationally active progressive philanthropist," says Brown's campaign manager, Thomas Wheatley. "He has been tracking Gov. Brown through her role as an emerging voice taking on the Trump administration on civil rights, health care and other polarizing issues."

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