Tom Tiffany, the Republican congressman running for governor of Wisconsin, filed his latest fundraising report on Wednesday. It shows who is really paying for his campaign.
According to the Associated Press, Tiffany raised more than $26 million over the past two months. More than $24 million of it came from just three people.
They are:
- Diane Hendricks, owner of ABC Supply, the Beloit roofing and building-supply giant.
- Richard Uihlein and Liz Uihlein, owners of the shipping-supply company Uline — who live in Illinois, not Wisconsin.
All three are longtime power players in Republican politics. Together they are now paying for most of the campaign of the man who wants to run Wisconsin.
How three people get around a $20,000 limit
In Wisconsin, a person can give a candidate no more than $20,000. So how does one family hand a campaign millions?
Through the state party. A 2015 Wisconsin law lets people give unlimited amounts to political parties, and lets parties pass unlimited amounts on to candidates.
That's exactly what happened here:
- Hendricks and the Uihleins gave the Wisconsin Republican Party about $38 million.
- The party then sent Tiffany about $34 million.
- That is most of the $43 million Tiffany has raised for the whole race.
Democrats use the same law. But the AP found that Tiffany's reliance on three megadonors for most of his money "is unlike anything ever seen before in Wisconsin."
And the Uihleins aren't done
The money doesn't stop at his campaign account. Restoration of America PAC, a group funded by Richard Uihlein, has reported spending about $12.5 million more to help elect Tiffany.
Richard Uihlein's money is showing up next door, too: a group he funds has put about $1.1 million into a PAC tied to Lisa Demuth's run for governor in Minnesota.
Buying the airwaves
What does $24 million from three people buy? A lot of TV.
Tiffany has outspent his opponent, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, on ads by $40 million to $26 million, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. A Marquette University Law School poll released the same day showed the race about even.
"We're watching several billionaires here decide they want to play kingmaker in this race and the voters are the ones getting screwed out of this election," Nick Ramos of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks money in state races, told the AP.
He doesn't like talking about it
When the AP asked about the money, Tiffany's campaign didn't defend it. It changed the subject to Crowley's fundraising.
Tiffany has been touchy about this. After the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on billionaire donations to his campaign, his campaign barred two of the paper's reporters from an event in Milwaukee — two days after he said he believed in an "open, free press."
Why it matters to Wisconsin
A governor signs or vetoes every budget, every tax change and every rule on how the state treats workers, businesses and the environment. When three people supply more than nine of every ten dollars a candidate raised in a two-month stretch, voters are entitled to ask whose interests that governor will put first.
What the filings show
Tom Tiffany raised more than $26 million in the last two months, and more than $24 million of it came from three billionaires — Diane Hendricks, Richard Uihlein and Liz Uihlein — routed through the Wisconsin Republican Party to get around the $20,000 limit on direct gifts. Those three gave the party about $38 million, the party sent Tiffany about $34 million of his $43 million total, and a Richard Uihlein-funded PAC has spent another $12.5 million on his behalf.
Source
- 3 billionaires give Republican Tom Tiffany a big cash boost in the Wisconsin governor's race — Associated Press, also published by The Washington Sun
