Let’s check in on Nicholas Kristof’s campaign for governor of Oregon. The longtime and now former New York Times columnist’s run recently hit an unexpected snag, after state election officials decided he didn’t meet the three-year residency requirement to qualify. Despite this, Kristof is powering on, hoping the state’s supreme court will throw the decision out on appeal, and he’s continuing to rack up big donations in the meantime.

The last time I wrote about Kristof’s campaign, I noted that $50,000 of his impressive fundraising haul (at the end of December 2021, it was $2.5 million) came from billionaire Melinda Gates, before detailing the oddly close relationship that Kristof and his wife developed with Gates and her now ex-husband, billionaire Microsoft founder Bill. For years, Kristof’s columns were strangely aligned with the Gateses and their many dubious ventures, including school privatization, microloans, and genetic modification as a solution to disease and hunger. The Gateses are immensely and deceptively powerful people, and I suggested it might be significant that one half of the couple was now generously funding what could end up as a successful gubernatorial run.

Well, since then, it’s turned out that it’s not just one half. In a filing made near the end of December, we now know that two weeks after Melinda’s own donation, Bill Gates donated the same amount, $50,000, to Kristof’s campaign. The couple’s divorce has not severed their professional relationship, with the pair affirming their commitment last July to “remain long-term partners and co-chairs” and continue leading the Gates Foundation, which serves as a conduit for their political and investment goals.