Peter Thiel entered the 2022 midterm season with a bang, writing two $10mn cheques to a pair of handpicked Senate candidates and positioning himself as the Republican party’s next political kingmaker.

Yet just three weeks before the elections, Thiel’s big experiment is in jeopardy, with one of his candidates struggling in the polls and both failing to match their Democratic opponents’ fundraising despite Thiel’s cash injections.

At the same time, Thiel and his candidates — Blake Masters in Arizona and JD Vance in Ohio — have largely failed to muster support with the Republican establishment, raising questions about the Silicon Valley billionaire’s long-term relationship with the party’s gatekeepers, such as Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican.