Billionaire Lauder gives $1 million to GOP group supporting candidates who questioned 2020 results
Billionaire Ronald Lauder gave $1 million to the Republican State Leadership Committee, which is supporting some state-level candidates who have questioned 2020 election results.
Lauder's $1 million donation, made on Sept. 12, is listed on the group's third-quarter report recently filed to the IRS. He provided a chunk of the $17 million the group raised from July through September. An even larger donation came from the Concord Fund, a group previously known as the Judicial Crisis Network that has ties to former President Donald Trump's former judicial advisor Leonard Leo. The Concord Fund, which previously spent millions of dollars on ads backing Trump's judicial nominees, gave $1.5 million to the Republican State Leadership Committee in September.
The Republican State Leadership Committee is supporting dozens of candidates running to become secretaries of state, lieutenant governors, state legislators and judges on state courts. Multiple Republican candidates running for secretary of state and lieutenant governor in the general election have echoed Trump in claiming that the 2020 election was stolen or rigged.