Welcome back to The Stratosphere.

Today, a deeper-than-you’ve-seen look at the donor and super PAC universe surrounding Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose fortunes in November—to say nothing of Trump’s or Biden’s—depend in part on whether he can raise enough money to qualify for 51 different ballots.

Mentioned in tonight’s edition: Sheila Creal, a top Democratic bundler who is now leading R.F.K.’s big-dollar operation; Bill Ackman, the totally-low-profile investor and Neri Oxman’s husband; J.B. Handley, an anti-vaccine activist who hosted a fundraiser for R.F.K this weekend; megadonors Timothy Mellon and Gavin de Becker; and Mike Tyson and Martin Sheen, who want you to know that they definitely are not supporting this Kennedy.

Look, the guy won’t be president. But R.F.K. is certain to be a major storyline of the election, even if most reporters and pundits have yet to figure out if he’ll be a sideshow or a spoiler. His success could be determined, in no small part, by how much money he brings in—and whether his operation can professionalize enough to ensure he qualifies for as many state ballots as possible. “I don’t care how many podcasts you do and hands you shake,” said Sofia Karstens, an actress who runs a nascent super PAC working on ballot access for R.F.K. “If you’re not on the ballot in all 50 states, who cares?”

Over the past few months, Kennedy and his allies have been diving headfirst into the fundraising pool. Despite all his populist rhetoric, Kennedy has assembled a national finance committee, I’m told, which includes more than 50 people who have committed to raising $100,000 each by bundling contributions from their friends. I’m also told that the Kennedy campaign is considering disclosing the names of their bundlers, which will no doubt feature some vaccine skeptics and folks in the tech community. Notably, I’ve learned that the fundraising effort for this ragtag campaign is being led by an actual veteran, Kennedy national finance director Sheila Creal, an experienced Democratic bundler who collected checks for both Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.

Major donors to Kennedy have included the ever-voluble Bill Ackman and David Sacks, and I know of at least a few billionaire donors who have expressed interest in brokering introductions with the R.F.K. camp, eager to get face time with his campaign. In the new year, Kennedy’s fundraising blitz across the country, with an event scheduled every few days, will focus on states he already has to visit for ballot-qualification purposes, I’m told. The events, according to invites I’ve seen, are often as unusual as the candidate: On January 1, he held a high-dollar event with folks in Aspen, where “apres ski attire” was recommended; on January 16, donors in Hawaii can wear “aloha attire” for a “private sunset reception” with Kennedy and his wife, Cheryl Hines, or join him two days later to go whale watching at a “very special event on a beautiful catamaran in the heart of Oahu.”

Several of the hosts come from the so-called “health freedom” community—the euphemism for these anti-vaccine activists—as is true of many people in R.F.K.’s fundraising orbit and supportive super PACs. For instance, this past weekend in Oregon, Kennedy spoke and answered questions at a sold-out cocktail reception outside of Portland hosted by J.B. Handley, the founder of Generation Rescue, an organization that has pushed links between vaccines and autism. It was attended by about 170 people who paid a minimum of $500 to be there, making it, at minimum, an $85,000-grossing event. There’s plenty of money in the vaccine-skeptic world.

Kennedy has also embraced the help of super PACs. Before he even announced his bid, R.F.K. personally asked a supporter in Silicon Valley, Steven Kirsch, to make sure there was a super PAC operation set up specifically for his campaign, Kirsch told me. Kirsch, a hardline anti-vaccine activist, then found an existing group and rejiggered it to become a pro-R.F.K. operation, which is now called American Values. That group has said it will spend up to $15 million of its own money to help R.F.K. qualify in seven states—including those that require the most signatures, such as California, New York, and Texas—with the possible goal of triggering a contingent election, where no candidate reaches 270 electoral college votes, and the president is chosen by congressional delegations from each state.

American Values founder Tony Lyons, the president of Skyhorse Publishing and a close Kennedy friend, told me his PAC will take the lead in those seven states, and the campaign itself will seek qualification in the other 44 jurisdictions, including Washington, D.C. But when I spoke with the campaign, they reiterated that they, following in the footsteps of Ross Perot, would be trying on their own to qualify on all 51 ballots, which sounds pretty duplicative. Perhaps there are some management wrinkles to iron out, in addition to future legal headaches: I know some operatives working for Kennedy opponents who believe that super PACs cannot legally do these extensive ballot-qualification efforts and are working to stop it. R.F.K.’s team obviously disagrees.

Lyons’s group says it has now raised close to $30 million, a not-insignificant amount of money. Its biggest public donors to date have been an eclectic mix, including Timothy Mellon, an heir to the Gilded Age banking fortune. Mellon, who lives part-time in Wyoming, emerged from the woodwork in the Trump era, making eight-figure donations to G.O.P. groups who didn’t even solicit money from him; he also single-handedly tried to finance the border wall in Texas. Mellon, I’ve been told, is fascinated by presidential politics and was first inclined to give $5 million to R.F.K. because he thought he was a kooky Biden-botherer in the Democratic primary. But now, some wonder whether Mellon will see independent R.F.K.’s run as a threat to his preferred candidate, Trump.

Then there is Gavin de Becker, the self-styled security expert for clients like Jeff Bezos. De Becker is a tried-and-true R.F.K. believer and personal friend of the candidate; he’s also paid by the candidate for protection services, given that R.F.K. does not receive Secret Service protection, much to De Becker’s chagrin. De Becker, a Democrat, gave $4.5 million to the super PAC earlier this year and has encouraged people to donate money to the presidential campaign explicitly so that Kennedy will have greater personal security. “I have been a supporter of Democratic candidates for decades, and I find R.F.K. Jr. to be more committed to genuine Democratic values than the D.N.C. itself,” de Becker told me. “I am glad he has support from Republicans and Democrats and independents.”

And what about Elon? Lyons also told me that Elon Musk had not yet donated to the group, but that he was a “logical donor” eventually. “There were lots of people who thought that he was just on the verge of donating to Bobby Kennedy. And my guess is that he probably will.”

The group has deployed a few hundred thousand in personal money from its founders to host a big fundraiser in L.A., with alleged attendees ranging from Mike Tyson to Martin Sheen. Gunasti told me last Friday night that he hoped to raise $1 million for his super PAC at the event, which he said would be attended by more than 200 people, including Kennedy. The first super PAC, American Values, promoted the birthday party and the celebrities’ attendance on social media. “All I know is I have one event, and if I can raise $1 million I will be happy,” he told me. “Once I raise $1 million, I know I can raise $2 million or $3 million. And believe me, if I reach that plateau, I can raise $30 million by the end of the year.”

Of course, the event has become Page Six fodder because all of the celebrities were not, actually, attending this R.F.K. bash. Cue some serious backlash, with several of the celebrities posting on Instagram that uh, no, they were not supporting this guy for president of the United States. I was hearing over the weekend that Kennedy was going to pull out, and yesterday he finally did. This sort of stuff, of course, doesn’t happen in your standard campaign. When B-listers are rushing out statements to say they’re not associated with you, that’s a signal that this Kennedy, at least, has a hard ceiling.