Daniel Lewis is a Democratic Party philanthropist and brother of late businessman Peter B. Lewis, the former CEO of Progressive Insurance, the third-largest insurance company in the United States.
Early Life
Daniel Lewis was born on August 1, 1946. [1] He received an accounting degree from Miami University in 1968. [2] He then worked as a real estate developer in Phoenix, Arizona, but eventually returned to his family’s company and took on general management, control, claims, product management, and board membership responsibilities. [3] Daniel Lewis’s father, Jack Lewis, founded Progressive Insurance in 1937. In 1965, Daniel and his brother Peter took over their father’s small insurance company and grew it into the third-largest insurance company in the United States. [4]
Political Contributions
Lewis has consistently supported Democratic Party candidates and aligned political action committees (PACs) since 1984. [5]
Between 2019 and 2020, Lewis contributed $5,600 to the presidential campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden (D) and $966.66 to the Democratic Party of Virginia. [6] In 2016, Lewis contributed $25,000 the Hillary Victory Fund PAC and $2,700 to the presidential campaign of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D), as well as $22,300 to the Democratic National Committee. [7] In 2012, Lewis contributed $5,000 to the re-election campaign of President Barack Obama[8] and $5,000 to the campaign of Rep. Sean Maloney (D-NY). [9]
Third Way
Lewis sits on the board of Third Way. [10] Third Way claims to hold center-left positions on a variety of policy areas, including economic policy, national security, healthcare. While the organization’s economic policy does align closely with more moderate center-left politics, much of the organization’s other policy positions, such as advocating for increased government control over healthcare,[11] and support for abortion organizations such as Planned Parenthood that seek taxpayer funding, indicate that on many issues Third Way is more of a left-of-center organization. [12]
Lewis Music Prize
In 2018, Lewis established the Lewis Prize for Music Foundation, an organization that provides funding for young individuals to obtain formal education in music. A document created by the organization for applicants claims that inequities in the United States stem from “systems that devalue, exploit, and exclude people.” [13] The document states that the program seeks “applicants who have a solid progressive change initiative underway and are beginning to see progress toward a tipping point or are sustaining the transition to a new system.” [14]