LANSING — According to a Bridge Michigan analysis of campaign finance records, the highest reported spenders in Michigan state politics during the 2024 election cycle were so-called dark money organizations and ultrawealthy donors.
Members of the billionaire DeVos family of west Michigan were once again the biggest individual spenders, donating nearly $4.4 million to state-level candidates and political causes.
The largest spender was a political action committee dedicated to supporting House Republicans, with $6.2 million.
Political spending in the most recent election year broke records, with the presidential election costing more than $16 billion. Michigan’s statewide elections were no exception.
According to campaign finance records, an account that is not required to disclose donors accounted for nearly $4.5 million of the Republican State Leadership Committee’s total spending. It hired vendors to canvass for Republican candidates, send text messages, and run ads in support of GOP candidates.
Though Democrats outraised and outspent Republicans in the fall election, the GOP flipped four Democratic seats and will have a six-seat majority in the chamber by 2025.
The spending totals reported to the state represent only a portion of the overall election influence effort in Michigan, where politicians and political parties can raise funds for other accounts that do not require disclosure.
The Michigan Democratic Party spent nearly $13 million on broadcast advertising in state House races alone, all through an account with no disclosure requirements under Michigan’s campaign finance laws.
The DeVos family, longtime GOP megadonors who have helped shape Michigan politics for decades, contributed $137,200 directly to candidate campaigns, $781,752 to the House GOP’s PAC, and $342,125 to their Senate counterpart.
DeVos family members also contributed $2.3 million to the Michigan Freedom Network, an offshoot of the Michigan Freedom Fund, a conservative advocacy group that is also heavily funded by the family.
Kenneth and Jennifer Duda of California, a millionaire tech entrepreneur and Stanford doctor, gave a combined $1.5 million to a PAC controlled by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who is considering running for governor.
The Dudas each contributed $750,000 to Benson’s Michigan Legacy PAC, which then distributed a portion of the funds to Democratic candidates.
Political operatives frequently moved money in complex ways.
Democratic nominees for the Michigan Supreme Court easily won their races thanks to millions of dollars in out-of-state independent spending.
Justice Project Action, a so-called “dark money” nonprofit, donated $4.4 million to a super PAC supporting Democratic nominees.
At the same time, a separate Justice Project account that does report its donors transferred $1.4 million to its own super-PAC.
GOP had billionaires, Dems had unions
The 2024 Michigan House election was the most expensive in state history, totaling more than $67 million.
Bridge Michigan examined campaign finance contributions to state House candidates, their leadership political action committees, and the PACs representing each caucus in order to identify the largest donors in the state House race.
Individuals can donate up to $48,875 to each caucus PAC per calendar year, which is equivalent to donating the maximum to nearly 80 House candidates over a two-year election cycle, making large donations to that fund especially lucrative.
Union-funded PACs dominated Democratic coffers. Unions representing employees in both the public and private sectors contributed at least $4.2 million to House campaigns this cycle.
With a majority in both chambers for the past two years, Democrats passed a slew of labor-friendly legislation, most notably repealing Michigan’s decade-old “right-to-work” law.
Republican House candidates had the lowest total campaign fundraising since the 2006 election, but many familiar names appeared among the largest donors, including the Devos family, the furniture magnate Hayworth family, and the Kennedy family, which owns Autocam Medical.
Some major self-funded candidates gave their own campaigns six-figure sums. Denise Ilitch, a billionaire Democrat and University of Michigan Regent, spent $829,000 on her campaign and won reelection.
The family of Rep. Tom Kunse, R-Clare, spent heavily, contributing nearly $200,000 to elect Republicans across the state, with roughly half of that amount going to his leadership PAC.
Former Warren Mayor Jim Foust, who was ousted from his municipal seat, spent approximately $120,000 on his 14th District state House campaign but lost the Democratic primary by more than 4,000 votes to incumbent Rep. Mike McFall of Hazel Park.
Parker Faribairn, who defeated embattled Representative Neil Friske of Charlevoix in the Republican primary, spent $83,000 of his own money on the campaign. The annual salary for state representatives is $71,685.
Some of Michigan’s most influential special interest groups made donations that were nearly evenly split between the parties.
The Michigan Association of Realtors, for example, contributed $424,000 to Democrats and $364,000 to Republicans. DTE Energy, one of the state’s major utilities, gave Democrats $312,000 and Republicans $227,000.
