Richard Uihlein

Background

Richard (Dick) Uihlein is a descendant of the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company fortune. In 1969, Uihlein worked for the successful special election campaign of conservative activist Phil Crane, who was elected to Congress to succeed former Rep. Donald Rumsfeld (R-IL) after his appointment to a Nixon administration post. ^{2 3}

The Uihleins in 2002 reported around $18 million in income. In 2018, their income shot up to $712 million, according to ProPublica.  ⁴ Uihlein had an estimated net worth of $7.2 billion as of July 2026, according to Forbes. ⁵

Uihlein earned his bachelor’s in history from Stanford University. In 1967, he went to work for General Bindings Corporation, the company co-founded by his father, Edgar Uihlein.  ⁶ In 1980, he and his wife, Elizabeth Uihlein, founded Uline. ⁷ The company, based in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, is one of North America’s largest distributors of shipping, packaging, and industrial supplies. The company has about 9,000 employees with an estimated revenue of $8.1 billion and sells more than 43,000 products.  ⁵

The Guardian first alleged in December 2024 that Uline had been shuttling in workers from Mexico to work at its plants in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida. ⁸ The Guardian also reported that the Uihleins surveyed Uline employees in October 2024 ahead of the presidential election about for whom they planned to vote. ⁹

Family

Dick Uihlein’s wife, Elizabeth Uihlein, is the president of Uline and a prominent Republican donor. ¹⁰

She was an outspoken opponent of COVID-19 lockdowns. In July 2021, Elizabeth emailed Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers (D), advising him to cut welfare payments to incentivize people to return to work. ²

Uihlein’s father, Edgar Uihlein Jr., was a member of the national finance committee of the John Birch Society, a prominent and controversial right-wing group that opposed the New Deal welfare programs and the civil rights movement. Uihlein’s grandfather was a donor to the pre-World War II America First Committee, which advocated for strict American neutrality until the attack on Pearl Harbor. ²

Political Advocacy

Dick Uihlein is a prominent Republican political donor. In 2018, the New York Times called Uihlein “the most powerful conservative you’ve never heard of.” ¹¹

The Washington Post has described him as having “anti-union, free-market and small-government views.” In a court testimony, Uihlein described his political priorities as “freedom of speech, limited government, sanctity of life and, also, Second Amendment rights.” ¹²

Political Donations

As of July 2026, Richard and Elizabeth have contributed about $400 million over the years to conservative candidates and causes in federal races, according to Federal Election Commission filings. ¹

By June 2026, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein had contributed $50.7 million to Republican Party and right-of-center efforts in the midterm elections, the Washington Post reported. ¹³ This included $39.6 million to Restoration of America, a right-of-center political action committee. They donated $4 million to Fair Courts America, which supports right-of-center judicial candidates. They gave another $1 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, which supports Republican House candidates. ¹³

Richard Uihlein is known for funding anti-tax, anti-union and anti-establishment political committees such as Restoration PAC and Club for Growth Action. ¹⁴ During the 2022 election cycle, he contributed more than $65 million to each. ¹⁴

In the 2010 election cycle, Uihlein and his wife contributed $319,000, making them the 34th largest Republican donors. In the 2016 cycle, they contributed $22 million; in the 2018 cycle, they contributed $38 million; in the 2020 cycle, they contributed $75 million. In the 2022 election cycle, they contributed more than $60 million, making them the largest Republican donors of the cycle. ^{2  15}

Uihlein has supported numerous candidates characterized as far-right by their opponents. In the 2022 election cycle, Uihlein spent $50 million in support of Illinois state Senator Darren Bailey’s (R-Xenia) unsuccessful gubernatorial run. Senator Bailey was considered a far-right candidate, and once claimed that abortion law in the United States had caused more deaths than the Holocaust. In 2020, Uihlein supported former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore’s (R) unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Senate. ¹⁶

The Ed Uihlein Family Foundation, a grantmaking nonprofit run by Uihlein, donates to the Federalist Society, the Conservative Partnership Institute, and the Foundation for Government Accountability. ¹²

Presidential Primaries

During the 2023 and 2024 election cycle, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein gave more than $140 million, first partly supporting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s (R) presidential campaign, and then fully supporting then-former President Donald Trump after DeSantis dropped out.  ⁵

In the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, Richard Uihlein initially supported the campaigns of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and then-Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) but supported Donald Trump after they dropped out. ¹⁷

Though Uihlein has been a supporter of President Trump, according to GRID, his support has been moderate and might only represent a preference over Democrats rather than enthusiastic support. Allegedly, the Uihleins contributed “only a fraction of what they regularly pour into other candidates for office. They did not make a habit of visiting the White House during Trump’s tenure.”  ¹⁸

In the 2016 and 2020 election cycles, Uihlein donated $750,000 to President Trump’s America First Action ¹⁹and $900,000 to Trump Victory. ²⁰

2020 Election Disputes

According to the left-of-center Brennan Center for Justice, Uihlein and his wife donated almost $63 million to candidates and PACs who rejected the results of the 2020 presidential election. At the state level, recipients include the American Principles Project and the People Who Play by the Rules PAC. Federally, in 2022 the Uilleanns donated to over three dozen U.S. Senatorial and Congressional candidates who disputed or rejected the election results. Through his charitable foundation, Uihlein also contributed $1.2 million to the Conservative Partnership Institute, which employs a lawyer who worked on President Trump’s election lawsuits. ²¹