The GOP’s Biggest Donor Has a Soft Spot for Election Deniers

With Roger Sollenberger, Political Reporter

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The Big Dig this week … The GOP’s Biggest Donor Has a Soft Spot for Election Deniers

The billionaire Uihlein family are the biggest Republican donors for the 2022 midterms. But a review of federal data also shows that the overwhelming majority of that money has gone to candidates who have denied or questioned the 2020 election results—in fact, about 80 percent of it went to those Republicans.

Between January 7, 2021, and August 31, 2022, Dick and Elizabeth Uihlein—owners of the Uline shipping company—gave about $1.7 million to incumbent candidates, Federal Election Commission data shows. About $1.3 million of that money, or nearly 80 percent, went to campaigns or committees tied to the 147 Republicans who voted on Jan. 6 to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.

The Uihleins have also given around $225,000 to non-incumbent Republicans seeking federal office in 2022. And more than 85 percent of that amount—around $191,000—also went to candidates who have either denied or questioned the legitimacy of the election results, including some who attended events at the Jan. 6 insurrection.

U got a line, I got a PAC

The vast majority of their money, however, goes to political action committees, including super PACs, which can accept contributions in unlimited amounts. And since the day after the attack on the Capitol, the Uihleins have poured a total of $53 million into PACs, with about 85 percent of it—$44.8 million—split between four PACs that either back election deniers directly or activities surrounding false election claims.

Those four groups include the Club for Growth Action conservative super PAC, Wisconsin Truth PAC (a super PAC backing election denier Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI)), and 34N22 Inc. (a super PAC behind Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker, who has repeatedly promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 results and refused to say Biden was lawfully elected as recently as May.)

The fourth super PAC, Restoration PAC, is part of the larger Restoration of America network and funded almost exclusively by the Uihleins.

Of the committees affiliated with the 147 election challengers, the top recipient was the Steve Scalise Leadership Fund, a committee tied to House whip Steve Scalise (R-LA). The Uihleins threw a little more than $1 million behind the fund, or about four of every five dollars that they’ve given to the group of 147 since the insurrection.

Good people

Last week, ProPublica reported that the Uihleins are the top contributors to Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, an election-denying conspiracy theorist who attended the events of Jan. 6. They’re also the primary underwriters of Restoration of America, which ProPublica reported has stated goals to “get on God’s side of the issues and stay there” and “punish leftists.”

A spokesperson for the Uihleins declined to comment for this article.

For the Uihleins, it’s been a precipitous rise in influence—even in megadonor terms.

In 2018, The New York Times called the Uihleins “The Most Powerful Conservative Couple You’ve Never Heard Of.” In 2020, Uihlein—whose business made Forbes’ list of the 75 largest private companies in the country—was the fifth-biggest donor to outside spending groups, per data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

But according to ProPublica, the Uihleins caught a windfall in profits when the pandemic increased demand for Uline’s shipping services. And in the last two years, their donations surged.

Big spenders

In that time, they’ve poured at least $121 million into political activity at the state and federal level combined, including anti-union, anti-abortion rights, and anti-tax causes. To put that spike in perspective, the couple has given $190 million, total, Forbes reported in August.

Altogether, the Uihleins—along with Dick Uihlein’s sister, Lucia—have contributed around $55 million to political committees since the insurrection, per FEC data. Dick Uihlein’s 2022 donations alone put him ahead of cycle hedge fund honcho Ken Griffin, tech billionaire turned GOP puppetmaster Peter Thiel, investor Stephen Schwarzman, and Oracle chief Larry Ellison.

Only one person appears to have given more money—Democratic megadonor George Soros, who has ponied up a staggering $192,000,000 since Jan. 6. (A Houston-area man named Lee Mercer, Jr. reported $192,000,000 in what he says are in-kind donations to his former outsider presidential campaign for “Criminal Investigations of the U.S. Gov’t and Election BID Failure 2008 TO NOW.”)

Non-profit deposit

The Uihleins have also bankrolled ultra-conservative politics and anti-election activity through their nonprofit, the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation.

In January, The Daily Beast reported that the foundation’s 2020 tax disclosures show millions of dollars flowing to an array of groups tied to efforts to undermine Biden’s victory and rewrite election law—including $1.25 million to the right-wing Conservative Partnership Institute think tank, where Trump insurrection attorney Cleta Mitchell served as senior legal fellow.

That donation tops Trump’s own $1 million contribution to CPI last year, after it hired his last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.

Read the whole story here.

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From Roger’s Notebook...

Big spenders. Today, the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets) is publishing its estimate of the cost of the 2022 midterms at the state and federal level—pegging the total expenses at a staggering $16.7 billion. According to a release shared with The Daily Beast, OpenSecrets expects federal candidates and committees to have spent nearly $8.9 billion, while with another $7.8 billion at the state level. Federal spending, the release says, has already exceeded the (inflation-adjusted) record costs of the 2018 midterms, $7.1 billion.

Sprechen sie Deutsche? New information released this week by the New York Attorney General in its lawsuit against the Trump Organization argues that the company is “in the process of trying to avoid its legal obligations.” The obligation at issue is the required annual statement of financial condition to Deutsche Bank regarding the Trump Org’s outstanding $45 million loan on Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago. A Trump executive tried to replace the statement obligation with a “one-page spreadsheet that shows his material assets and liabilities,” the new filing says, and when the bank rejected the plan the company went so far to avoid submitting the statement that it restructured the loan payments. They got the statement due date pushed back from Oct. 28 to Dec. 31, but now have to fully repay the loan one year earlier—and for that, the filing said, Trump “expects to rely on third-party refinancing.”

Second WinRed investigation. A filing in Minnesota state court this week revealed for the first time that GOP online fundraising platform WinRed is currently under investigation by the attorney general of Connecticut. The investigation mirrors the Minnesota lawsuit against the combo private company-conduit PAC, which is alleged to have duped donors out of money through widespread use of pre-checked recurring donation options. WinRed argues that states don’t have jurisdiction to enforce consumer protection laws, chalking all its activity up to its federal PAC—an argument one judge already found flawed.

Blood from a Stone. In the year between Aug. 15, 2021, and Aug. 15, 2022, Roger Stone raked in a total $317,115.40 in consulting fees, according to FEC data. All the money went to his company, Drake Ventures LLC, which was part of an alleged $2 million tax avoidance scheme that Stone resolved in a federal settlement this July, agreeing to fully repay the amount.

His clients include multiple far-right GOP candidates who lost their primaries, as well as Cicely Davis, who is running a long-shot race against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). The Daily Beast previously reported that several payments align conspicuously with candidate endorsements.

Speaking of Roger Stone… He’s tied to another FEC filing this week—a new super PAC run by the father of former Stone aide Andrew Miller. The new group, called the Benjamin Franklin Institute, shares its name with a nonprofit and, according to the filing, appears to be run by Miller’s father, Tim Suereth, out of St. Pete Beach, Florida. The father and son have worked on GOP campaigns previously, and Suereth once pleaded guilty to smuggling charges after getting caught with nearly 20 illegal immigrants in his boat. He then turned into a federal informant in an investigation into a Bahamas-Florida smuggling network.

Skin deep. This week, Republican National Committee chair Ronna Romney-McDaniel joined in the attacks on the physical shortcomings suffered by Democratic Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate John Fetterman following his stroke this spring. Since she became chair, the RNC has paid about $17,000 in “media preparation” fees to her stylist in Detroit, in payments running between $300 and $1,350. (The costliest service at the salon is $300, for microblading.)

Only three other political entities paid for “media preparation” this cycle—including Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) for drycleaning—an expense other groups refer to as “makeup.” The RNC’s expenses also show that thousands of dollars in “media preparation” costs also went to a Fox News stylist.

More From The Beast’s Politics Desk

Kari Lake was supposed to be an unelectable disaster in the general election to be Arizona governor. But now she looks poised to win. Sam Brodey went to Arizona to report on the weird campaign she’s run and how she now looks poised to become a governor and possibly Trump’s running mate. Read this one.

The Trump Org settled a lawsuit this week stemming from an incident outside Trump Tower in 2015. It all started when protesters showed up to express their disgust with then-candidate Donald Trump’s rhetoric on a host of issues, particularly immigration. Reportedly, Trump told his security guards to go rough up the protesters, which they did. Just as the case was set to go to trial, the Trump Org settled. Read Jose Pagliery’s dispatch, after following this case for years.

In the closing days of the midterms, Republicans are expanding their battlefield to not just reliably blue seats, but to seats with Democrats they’d like to troll. Republicans are spending “fuck you money” in a number of seats where they’ll, at worst, give a Democrat a scare, and at best, win. The most notable example is the district of the DCCC chairman, Sean Patrick Maloney. Read Jake Lahut’s story all about it.

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