Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein (Screenshot from the New York Times YouTube video
"Meet the Billionaire Couple Trying to Reshape the Republican Party")
For years, billionaire Republican donors Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein have given a lot of money to right-wing causes and Republican politicians. The Washington Post recently reported they rank second only to Elon Musk among the biggest donors in the current election cycle. While they live across the border in Lake Forest, Illinois, they take a special interest in Wisconsin. Yet the millions of dollars in donations they’ve given to the Wisconsin Republican Party look like chump change compared to the massive amount of money they’ve showered on the state since Tom Tiffany announced his run for governor.
The Uihliens upped their contributions to the state party from $20,000 in 2014 to $500,000 in 2017 and more than $1 million in 2018, according to campaign finance data published on the Wisconsin Ethics Commission’s Sunshine website. Altogether, they gave about $3.6 million to the party between 2016 and 2024. But in 2025 and 2026, as Tiffany launched his campaign for governor, the Uihleins gave exponentially more — about $34.8 million.
Thanks to a loophole created under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, donors can sidestep limits on their contributions to particular candidates by giving unlimited money to political parties, which can then pass the money directly to the candidates. And the Republican Party of Wisconsin has funneled the Uihleins’ money directly to Tiffany. Almost all of the money Tiffany raised in the most recent reporting period came from the Uihleins and one other billionaire, Diane Hendricks.
The Uihleins support a lot of Republican candidates and causes, and would likely have supported the Republican no matter who was running for governor this year. But they have a special relationship with Tiffany.
Back when he was serving in the Wisconsin state Senate, Tiffany’s district included Manitowish Waters, the small town where the Uihleins opened a resort, restaurant, spa, condominium complex and other businesses, turning the sleepy, lakeside community into a fancy tourist destination.
Tiffany, who lived 30 miles away in Hazelhurst, was very helpful to the Uihleins when some local residents and environmentalists asked the DNR to study the damage caused by a dam on Rest Lake in Manitowish Waters. The dam kept water levels low in the fall so lakeshore property owners didn’t have to take in their piers and high in the spring, just in time for them to take out their boats. According to the River Alliance of Wisconsin, partially closing the dam’s gates in the spring, “to raise the levels back up in time for boating season” meant ”starving the Manitowish River of water at a time when fish spawn. Downstream river property owners would find mud flats where water had been the day before.”
A 2015 article, “Requiem for a River,” posted by the River Alliance, describes how Tiffany slipped a few sentences into the 2015-17 state budget undercutting regulation of the dam and pronouncing a “death sentence” for the Manitowish River, essentially turning Rest Lake, where the Uihliens owned a condominium complex, into a private lake.
The tiny provision Tiffany added to the budget (#49 in a long list of last-minute budget tweaks), is titled “Dam Water Level Orders” and specifies that the Legislature must approve changes to a dam in Vilas County. With that deft maneuver, Tiffany killed a years-long effort by citizens to save the Manitowish River and rendered moot an environmental study by the DNR.
“What happened to the Manitowish River is a case study of how far we have fallen in resource conservation,” the River Alliance article concludes. “The Manitowish River now has upstream winners – well-connected and wealthy people who know how to use their influence to get what they want – and downstream losers without the same clout. Tiffany’s bill practically makes the Rest Lake chain a private waterway, in a state that prides itself on managing water in the public interest.”
“My constituents elected me to get results,” Tiffany said by way of explanation, in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report on his budget maneuver.
Tiffany’s constituents, of course, included the Uihleins.
His intervention in the matter of the Rest Lake dam was no small favor to the most well-connected and wealthy of all the constituents in his northern Wisconsin district. For the Uihleins, the transformation of Manitowish Waters was a special, personal cause.
Elizabeth Uihlein’s intense focus on funding improvements and reshaping even tiny aesthetic details of Manitowish Waters to her liking divided residents, according to a 2015 article in the Journal Sentinel. Some people appreciated the big investment in the community. Others did not like being left out of decisions about public spaces and objected to how their community was forced to conform to one wealthy woman’s tastes.
Elizabeth Uihlein herself told the Journal Sentinel, “It’s like a little Aspen. It’s beautiful, but it’s dying.” She suggested that local residents should be grateful for her generosity in providing for them, since they would never make it on their own. “The whole thing is dying up there,” she said. “The money had to come from elsewhere.”
The Uilheins, founders of the packing supply company Uline, are among the richest people in the U.S. They were also some of former Gov. Walker’s biggest donors, a fact that was mentioned in news coverage of the sweetheart deal they got on a swath of lakefront property in Manitowish Waters in 2016. Walker’s DNR gave the Uihleins a stretch of Rest Lake shoreline in exchange for a parcel of state forest land the couple owned in a different part of the state. DNR officials came up with the land swap, the AP reported, after critics objected to the state’s proposal to sell the lakeshore property to Elizabeth Uihlein for more than $100,000 less than its appraised value.
Long before the deal went through, the Uihleins started making unauthorized improvements on the public land they planned to buy. Some local officials were shocked to discover the extensive paths along the shoreline. Elizabeth Uihlein waved away their concerns. Later, with Walker’s help, she was able to claim the property as her own.
The section of Rest Lake shoreline the Uihleins received from the state gave lake access to their condominium complex. Tiffany’s deft tweak to the state budget ensured that boating conditions remained perfect in the spring, and in the fall the Uihleins and residents of their condo complex never had to go through the hassle of taking in their docks.
It’s worth asking what kind of return on investment the Uihleins expect to receive from their hyperscale donations to Wisconsin Republicans this year.
“The Uihleins wanted to take over a city. Tom Tiffany gave them their law change,” says Democratic analyst Scot Ross. “A decade later the Uihleins give his campaign $35 million. The dam man wouldn’t have a damn campaign without the Uihleins’ millions.”
In addition to the $34.8 million they funneled to Tiffany through the state party, The Uihleins have also given millions of dollars this cycle to try to elect Republican majorities in the state Legislature. In some cases, they’ve provided almost all of the campaign cash those Republican candidates have raised.
As the progressive group A Better Wisconsin Together put it in a statement on the politicians who received those donations, “it certainly raises questions about who they’re really looking out for.”
Mitchell Berman and Rebecca Cooke, the two Democrats running to unseat incumbent Republican Reps. Bryan Steil and Derrick Van Orden in two of the most closely watched congressional races in the country, outraised their opponents in the most recent filing period.
Both Democrats also received more individual and small dollar donations than Steil and Van Orden, who are more reliant on wealthy donors and the aid of GOP-aligned PACs. The latest campaign finance reports show that all four candidates will be funded enough for the final push to Election Day in both hotly contested races.
In the 1st Congressional District, Berman is running closer than expected to Steil. He narrowly outraised Steil between July 23 and Sept. 30.
Still, Steil spent four times as much money during the period and retains a massive cash-on-hand advantage.
Berman raised $897,321, with almost all of that coming from individual donations. He spent $710,725 during the reporting period and finished September with $338,069 in the bank. In the middle of the reporting period, Berman was added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s list of target races — bringing national infrastructure and support to the campaign.
Steil raised $783,582 during the period, including $215,637 from individuals, $268,500 from PACs and other committees, and $204,908 in transfers. He spent more than $2.9 million and had $4.2 million in the bank at the end of September.
Steil’s fundraising has recently drawn scrutiny, with the Milwaukee Courier reporting on donations he’s received from industry groups shortly before taking votes related to their business interests.
“Southeast Wisconsin is tired of politicians like Bryan Steil who get rich in office while working families pay more for everything,” Berman said in a statement about the finance reports. “Steil stood with Trump on tariffs, health care cuts, and a war that’s driving up prices, while handing billions in tax breaks to data center developers and his billionaire donors who are funding his campaign. No amount of dark money can cover up that record. I’m proud to have a campaign powered by the people of Southeast Wisconsin – not a dime of corporate PAC money – and in Congress, they’re the only ones I’ll answer to.”
In the 3rd Congressional District, Cooke has long been outraising Van Orden, but after a closer than expected Democratic primary election, her cash-on-hand advantage was depleted. For the cycle, she’s raised $12 million compared to Van Orden’s $9.3 million — a feat for a candidate who doesn’t have the fundraising advantage of incumbency.
During the most recent reporting period, Cooke more than doubled Van Orden’s fundraising, bringing in $3.4 million, with $883,128 of that money coming from donations of less than $200. She spent about $4.3 million and ended September with $901,408 in the bank.
Van Orden raised $1.2 million during the period, with $312,312 coming from donations of less than $200. He spent $3.8 million during the period and finished September with $2.1 million in cash and reported debts of $271,170.
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Wisconsin’s largest utilities are on track to contribute less to political campaigns than in the last two gubernatorial election years, despite the enormous stakes for the state’s energy future.
Neither Republican Tom Tiffany nor Democrat David Crowley received contributions from utility political action committees through September.
Utilities have directed nearly all their campaign contributions toward state legislative races.
Democrats are gaining ground in utility fundraising, receiving about 45% of contributions to legislative candidates and fundraising committees this year, compared with less than 20% in 2022.
Wisconsin’s multibillion-dollar energy infrastructure construction boom isn’t fueling a similar deluge of utility-related campaign spending ahead of the election.
The state’s largest utilities are collectively on track to spend less supporting political candidates this year than in the last two gubernatorial election years.
Utility campaign contributions to Wisconsin’s local, state and federal campaigns — and state-level partisan fundraising groups — reached just under $300,000 by late September, down roughly $50,000 from the same point in 2022.
Neither Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany nor Democratic candidate David Crowley took in any contributions from the utilities’ political action committees (PACs) between January and September.
Utilities could still make last-minute contributions before the election, as they have in years past.
Utilities are dialing back contributions despite the influence the next governor and Legislature will wield over the industry. Next month’s winners will appoint and confirm a new majority to the state commission that regulates utilities and weigh in on legislation that could shape Wisconsin’s energy future for decades.
Some industry observers speculate that the mismatch between utilities’ political spending and the election’s ramifications reflect the mounting public hostility to the data center boom — and, by extension, to the utilities themselves.
“I think utilities are beginning to recognize that their brand is increasingly toxic,” said Jonathan Kim, a Chicago-based researcher for the Energy and Policy Institute, a nonprofit watchdog. As of August, Kim is also the institute’s registered lobbyist in Madison, focusing on residential ratepayer concerns.
If past ties to utilities put a target on a candidate’s back, Kim added, the companies would have good reason to avoid making direct contributions in hotly contested races.
Wisconsin isn’t the only state where utility political spending appears to be softening. In Michigan, for example, the state’s largest investor-owned utilities are on track to spend less supporting political candidates this year than they did in the last three midterm cycles.
The drop in political spending falls short of an all-out retreat in Wisconsin. Utilities have steered nearly all of their contributions toward state legislative contests — and, for the first time in at least a decade, divided their giving almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans. The shift coincides with Democrats’ improved prospects of securing a majority in at least one legislative chamber for the first time since 2010.
How utilities spend on politics
Three companies provide electricity for a majority of Wisconsin households: Alliant Energy, owner of Wisconsin Power and Light; WEC Energy Group, the parent company of We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service Corporation; and Xcel Energy, owner of Northern States Power Company.
Each company operates separate federal and state political action committees, or PACs. The committees collect voluntary contributions from company executives, employees and shareholders, then distribute those funds to political candidates and organizations chosen by their boards of directors. Candidates can spend donations on their current or future campaigns — or share them with other candidates. They cannot legally spend on personal expenses.
Can utilities use ratepayer dollars for campaign contributions? (Click to expand)
Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission doesn’t explicitly prohibit it, but utility spokespeople told Wisconsin Watch that their companies do not bill ratepayers for political contributions. We Energies said the same to the state’s Public Service Commission in April.
Wisconsin law caps how much a PAC can contribute to a given state-level candidate in a single cycle — up to $2,000 for a Senate campaign, for instance, or $86,000 for a gubernatorial campaign. Federal rules similarly limit PAC contributions to individual candidates. Utilities’ federal PACs can give up to $5,000 to a federal candidate.
Utility employees and executives, meanwhile, can donate via employer-sponsored “conduits.” Alliant, WEC Energy and Xcel each sponsor conduits, as do Madison Gas and Electric and the American Transmission Company, Wisconsin’s largest transmission utility.
Like PACs, conduits serve as pass-throughs for political donations. Unlike PACs, employees choose which candidates receive their donations. The conduit’s sponsor may recommend candidates or races to support, and candidates who receive conduit contributions often also receive PAC donations.
Conduit contributions appear in campaign finance records under the individual donor’s name. Although state law limits how much individuals may contribute to a candidate, the combined donations routed through a utility’s conduit can exceed the amount a utility’s PAC may give in a single cycle.
How much have utilities spent on congressional races?
Alliant, WEC Energy and Xcel’s federal PACs gave roughly $23,500 to Wisconsin’s congressional delegation between January and late July.
U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, facing a competitive race for a district stretching from Janesville to Racine, received $5,000 from Alliant’s PAC in early March — the largest Wisconsin utility contribution to a single candidate this year. Federal campaign finance records show no utility PAC contribution to Steil’s Democratic opponent, Mitchell Berman.
The state’s utilities have largely steered clear of the high-profile race in Wisconsin’s 3rd District, where incumbent Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden and Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke have tried to link each other to data center interests.
Utility PACs have donated to all eight Wisconsinites in the U.S. House in the last decade. But annual donations have plunged from 2016, when the three utilities’ PACs gave over $94,000 to the Wisconsin delegation, primarily to Paul Ryan, who was House speaker at the time.
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, the Madison area’s representative in Washington since 2013, hasn’t received a utility contribution since 2018.
How much have utilities spent on state races?
Contributions from the state-level utility PACs and their conduits to Wisconsin legislative candidates and legislative fundraising committees totaled roughly $250,000 between January and September.
Much of the decline in utility contributions from 2022 stems from reduced spending by WEC Energy’s PAC and conduit.
Democratic lawmakers have received about 45% of utilities’ year-to-date contributions, compared to just under 20% in 2022.
“We work with both sides,” WEC Energy President Scott Lauber told investors on a July quarterly earnings call. “It’s just a matter of how we make Wisconsin successful.”
Taylor Adams, an Alliant Energy spokesperson, said the utility’s political giving is bipartisan and varies from year to year based on the communities and elected officials within its service territory, not partisan preference. Adams added that his company focuses on policies that support “reliable and cost-effective energy.”
Rep. David Steffen, chair of the Assembly Committee on Energy and Utilities, is the top individual recipient of utility dollars, campaign finance records show. He has received roughly $13,655 via utility PACs and conduits this year, accounting for roughly a third of his total 2026 fundraising as of September.
Alliant and WEC Energy’s PACs have already given Steffen’s campaign the maximum $1,000 allowed by state statute for an Assembly candidate in a single cycle. Three WEC executives have done the same through their company’s conduit.
The Assembly committee’s ranking Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Lisa Subeck, D-Madison, received $3,980.
Sen. Melissa Ratcliff of Cottage Grove, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Utilities, Technology and Tourism, received $5,250, including $2,000 from Alliant alone — the maximum state law allows for a Senate candidate. Ratcliff is not up for reelection until 2028.
Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August, R-Walworth, has received $7,500 from utilities and their conduits while Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, took in $5,560. With longtime Assembly Speaker Robin Vos set to retire, August is likely among top contenders to become speaker if Republicans keep the majority after Election Day.
August led Assembly’s Republicans through the two consecutive fights over utility-backed “right of first refusal” (ROFR) bills, which would grant Wisconsin’s transmission utilities first dibs on any electrical grid projects within their territory. Ratepayer advocates argue the proposal would risk driving up electricity prices by stifling competition in the transmission market.
Speaking at a June WisPolitics luncheon, Hesselbein blamed Republicans for the bill’s failure last session, casting the policy as a means to shore up Wisconsin-based businesses and union jobs.
Chamber leadership and members of the Senate and Assembly utilities committees received over a quarter of all utility PAC and conduit contributions this year.
That pattern isn’t unusual. Other industry interest groups, including in agriculture, also focus contributions on the committees most relevant to their businesses.
“Election spending from industry and wealthy special interests is about wanting access and sway over policy agendas that could affect their bottom line,” said Nick Ramos, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. “It’s no surprise that they assess the landscape and find who might have the most impact.”
Some top recipients are less obvious.
Rep. Tip McGuire, D-Kenosha, has received $4,750 this year — more than many lawmakers on the Assembly utilities committee, despite not serving on it. McGuire is one of four Democrats on the Joint Finance Committee, which drafts the state’s two-year budget.
Other key lawmakers received relatively little this year. Senate utilities committee chair Sen. Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin, received $1,500 from utility PACs and conduits as of late September, and Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer received $1,175.
Not all utility money reaches lawmakers directly. Utility PACs also contribute to partisan fundraising groups like the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee, which contributes to legislative campaigns.
State law doesn’t cap contributions to party fundraising committees.
“There’s not supposed to be any sort of coordination between donors to the party committee and the campaigns that receive that money,” Kim said, making it difficult to know which candidates ultimately benefit from the utility’s committee contribution.
Scant spending on the governor’s race
About 2% of contributions from utility PACs and utility conduits between January and September flowed directly to gubernatorial candidates — including to candidates who lost their primary.
Wisconsin hasn’t held an open gubernatorial election since 2010, muddying comparisons with other recent elections.
Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker collected roughly $269,000 in contributions — not adjusted for inflation — between the launch of his gubernatorial campaign in 2009 and his exit in 2019, including about $86,000 ahead of his 2018 defeat by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
Evers received about $11,000 in utility contributions during that race. Utilities have since contributed roughly $330,000 to his campaign committee.
Ahead of the 2022 election, utilities contributed more than twice as much to Evers as they did Tim Michels, his Republican opponent.
Some gubernatorial spending in 2018 and 2022 came in late October, just after the candidates turned in their final pre-election fundraising reports.
Tiffany has received roughly $3,600 via WEC and MGE’s conduits while Crowley has drawn none during the campaign.
Still, both accepted utility contributions during previous runs for office.
Tiffany brought in at least $17,000 from utility PACs and through their conduits over a decade of state legislative campaigns, followed by another $11,500 during and after his U.S. House campaign in 2020.
Crowley’s state Assembly campaign committee raised just over $1,600 from utility PACs and conduits — mostly WEC, which serves households in the Milwaukee district he represented. His Milwaukee County executive campaign committee accepted another $9,900 from WEC’s PAC and via its conduit between 2020 and 2024.
Any additional contributions between Oct. 26 and Election Day will appear on the candidates’ next finance report in January.
Crowley and Tiffany’s visions for the PSC (click to expand)
Both Crowley and Tiffany are picking up the banner of energy affordability, promising to follow through in part via their appointments to the PSC.
“Under David Crowley, the PSC will become a watchdog for taxpayers, ensuring that Wisconsinites’ utility bills stay as low as possible while creating greater transparency in where their tax dollars are going,” Crowley spokesman Philip Schulman wrote in an email. “This includes empowering the PSC to reject rate hikes in favor of cheaper options and publishing a quarterly score card detailing everything from avoided outages to fuel cost savings.”
Tiffany doesn’t shy away from criticizing the current commission, in no small part because of his objections to converting cropland into solar farms. “Day one when I become governor, they will be replaced,” he said at a September town hall in Sauk County, referring to the two acting commissioners — Kristy Nieto and Marcus Hawkins — serving without Senate confirmation.
Utility allies spend more
Utilities share interests with other groups, some of which have poured far more into this year’s governor’s race.
Crowley has received separate $86,000 donations — the PAC cap for a single cycle — from at least four labor groups that often align with utilities on energy infrastructure projects: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers PAC, International Union of Operating Engineers Local 139 PAC, Wisconsin Laborers’ District Council and Wisconsin Pipe Trades Association PAC. Two other construction trades unions contributed smaller sums to Crowley’s campaign; a PAC representing a carpenters’ union gave $82,500 and a PAC representing plumbers and steamfitters gave $25,000.
Those unions represent workers who build or operate power plants and transmission lines. The political director of the Wisconsin Laborers’ District Council sits on the board of Fair Rates for Wisconsin’s Dairyland alongside WEC and Alliant representatives.
Tiffany seized on that support in an attack ad that dubbed his opponent “Data Center David Crowley,” citing the labor groups’ vocal support for developing data centers and associated energy infrastructure. “IBEW certainly supports responsible data center development,” the IBEW state conference vice chair, John Jacobs, wrote in an email. “We also support renewable energy and countless projects that support family supporting jobs, great healthcare, great retirement benefits and a path to the middle class. All priorities of David Crowley – and that’s why we support him.”
Those labor groups had not contributed to Tiffany’s campaign through September. But Robert Marchant, the Wisconsin Data Center Coalition’s sole lobbyist, donated $5,000 in early June. Alliant, WEC and Xcel are founding members of the coalition.
The Wisconsin Ethics Commission’s new dashboard tries to make campaign finance information more accessible to the public. It cost $285,000 to build and will cost more than $270,000 to maintain over two years, plus another $20,000 to eliminate erroneous and duplicative records, according to Daniel Carlton, administrator of the Wisconsin Ethics Commission.
“The biggest gain for the public is that the new website has much easier and more complete access to reported activity,” says Carlton. “It’s presented in a much more transparent, easy-to-navigate way than ever before.” The website’s tagline? “Welcome to Sunshine.”
As a reporter, I remember scraping through campaign finance reports under the old system, trying to find information about state legislative campaigns. The website was slow and frequently froze up. Campaign finance information was uploaded via PDF. Sorting through the data was not fun.
The new dashboard was launched a year ago, in August 2025, and the coming Aug. 11 primary and the Nov. 3 election will present key opportunities to test it out. You can use the portal — at campaignfinance.wi.gov — to search for information on state candidates, including governor, attorney general and state legislator.
The site tracks individual candidate’s donors and recipients. You can also see how candidates spend (or “disburse”) the money they raise on such things as media, campaign staff and polling. You can find donors and easily see what other candidates they’ve given to. There are many other ways to filter information. To confirm your information, you can download the actual reports submitted by the campaigns.
Chali Pittman
As is often the case, the data isn’t always perfect. This spring, while reporting on a circuit court race, I used data from the Ethics Commission, confirming it in the actual campaign finance report. That data, according to the campaign manager, was wrong; it showed the campaign of a state Supreme Court justice donating more than the $6,000 maximally allowable for a circuit court election.
The campaign manager promised to correct this error in April, blaming the new reporting website. When asked again ahead of the most recent filing deadline, in July, he again promised to correct it. It has still not been corrected.
Blowback over erroneous campaign finance reports recently forced Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez out of the race for governor.
Carlton says typos and imperfect recordkeeping can create multiple entities when there should be one. ActBlue — a PAC that helps Democrats fundraise — is a good example. A filer can accidentally type “Act Blue” or “ActBlur,” which would be logged as separate entities.
The Ethics Commission has built a tool to “de-duplicate” entries like these. So far, it has reduced duplicative entities by 78% — from 12 million down to roughly 2.6 million. Carlton says the extra cost to streamline the data was “well worth it.”
“Staff is watching for obvious duplications and trying to deduplicate them after reporting deadlines,” says Carlton. “Of course, anyone that identifies duplicates can let us know and we can fix them quickly.” But a challenge of the system, he adds, is that “many users input data without training or experience, which can lead to data integrity issues. The system has to be set up to try to keep entities separate, but there is no perfect way to do that.”
Like with any new technology, the site comes with some growing pains. But the state should be lauded for trying to make campaign finance information — famously a shadowy process with plenty of loopholes — more accessible to the public.
Chali Pittman is a staff writer at Isthmus newspaper and a member of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the council.
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