If House Speaker Lisa Demuth becomes the Republican nominee for Minnesota governor in August, she’ll have one donor in particular to thank: Richard Uihlein.
Uihlein owns one of North America’s largest distributors of shipping and packaging supplies, the Wisconsin-based and privately owned Uline. Dick and his wife Liz Uihlein, who also serves as Uline’s president, are also among the country’s most generous megadonors to Republican candidates and conservative causes.
In the 2026 election cycle, the Uihleins have so far donated $50.7 million to various GOP candidates, anti-abortion campaigns and efforts to limit LGBTQ rights, according to the Washington Post, which ranked the Uihleins as the sixth-largest donor in the midterm election cycle so far.
A political action committee associated with Demuth has received about $1.1 million from a national PAC largely funded by Uilhein.
The funding has given her a significant funding advantage over her two gubernatorial primary opponents: GOP-endorsed candidate Kendall Qualls and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.
She has the most cash on hand of the three, and the outside spending by Restore Sanity — the political action committee affiliated with Demuth’s campaign — means she has the most resources with which to campaign against Qualls and Lindell.
The winner of the Aug. 11 primary will face presumptive Democratic nominee U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Last month, Demuth announced she was continuing on to the primary despite her previous pledge to drop out of the race if she lost the GOP endorsement.
Restore Sanity has spent over $1 million in television and digital advertisements and mailing material in the past six months in favor of Demuth’s campaign for governor, according to campaign finance data. One of those television advertisements depicts Demuth as a comic book superhero who is saving Minnesotans by lowering taxes and unmasking fraudsters. Asked about the advertisement in a recent MPR interview, Demuth said she wasn’t aware of the ad before it aired but said it’s gained a lot of attention.
“I am a hard fighter, and I’m doing the right thing for Minnesota,” Demuth said. “I have seven grandkids — some of them young — they now know I am a superhero rather than just talking about it.”
Demuth’s campaign for governor did not respond to the Reformer’s request for comment about whether Demuth knows Uihlein or whether anyone affiliated with her campaign sought his support. Officials from Restore Sanity also didn’t respond to the Reformer’s voicemail seeking comment.
Asked about Uihlein’s support for Demuth, a spokesperson with the Uline company said they cannot comment “on the political beliefs or positions of any of our owners or employees.”
The Uihleins rarely speak to the media and because their company is privately owned, their finances are opaque. But ProPublica in 2022 obtained their tax records, which show that the couple makes the majority of their money from their company. The Uihleins in 2002 reported around $18 million in income. In 2018, their income shot up to $712 million, according to ProPublica.
In one of the only interviews Richard Uihlein’s ever granted, he told the National Review in 2018 that he inherited his conservative politics from his father.
“My father would talk about the importance of capitalism and the evils of socialism,” Uihlein said.
A Forbes analysis found that the Uihleins reported donating over $194 million to candidates and causes from the ‘90s to 2022.
In recent years, the couple has spent their millions outside of Wisconsin and neighboring Illinois, where the couple lives. Most recently, Richard Uihlein bankrolled a Maine ballot initiative to roll back the state’s inclusive policies for transgender athletes. Maine’s secretary of state invalidated the referendum because hundreds of signatures were gathered improperly.
Richard Uihlein has also spent millions to defeat state efforts to codify abortion rights — at least $4 million in Ohio and $6.5 million in New York.
