A Texas oil billionaire with deep ties to the Christian Nationalist movement and a rising presence in the national GOP scene, has contributed $5 million to a super PAC backing Republican Mike Rogers’ U.S. Senate campaign in Michigan, marking a foray into Midwest politics.
Tim Dunn’s contributions to the Great Lakes Conservative Fund, or GLCF, were made in two installments of $2.5 million each in April and June and accounted for more than 98% of the PAC’s total fundraising during the first half of 2025, according to a mid-year report filed July 31 with the Federal Election Commission.
Dunn, the CEO of Midland-based CrownQuest Operating, has long been a major financier of far-right political causes in Texas and beyond, with his deep-pocketed influence drawing national attention for pushing Christian nationalist ideology, which critics say aims to reshape American democracy to reflect a narrow interpretation of Christian values.
Former Republican Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, who is Jewish, told the Texas Tribune that Dunn felt he was unqualified to hold that position, telling him in 2010 that “only Christians should hold leadership positions” in that state’s lower chamber.
CNN also reported that former associates of Dunn said his ultimate goal was to “replace public education with private Christian schooling.”
A request for comment by Michigan Advance was sent to Dunn, but has yet to be answered.
Dunn’s support of Rogers, a former mid-Michigan congressman seeking the GOP nomination to run for U.S. Senate in 2026, marks a significant foray into Midwest politics by an out-of-state donor known for reshaping Texas’s Republican Party in his own image, but who has also shown an increasing interest in influencing national politics.
While the Great Lakes Conservatives Fund is an independent expenditure-only committee and is legally prohibited from coordinating directly with Rogers or his campaign, Rogers has not publicly spoken about Dunn’s involvement in the race, and his campaign did not respond to a request for comment by Michigan Advance.
The Detroit News reported that the PAC spent more than $21 million on Rogers’ unsuccessful 2024 U.S. Senate run, which he narrowly lost to now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly).
However, Dunn’s political network has also come under fire for its ties to white supremacists and antisemites.
In 2023, a top official at one of Dunn’s Texas-based PACs, Defend Texas Liberty, met with white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who has openly espoused antisemetic views including that the Holocaust was “exaggerated”.
While Dunn called the the Fuentes meeting “a serious blunder,” the Texas Tribune uncovered numerous close ties between other associates of Fuentes and the Defend Texas Liberty PAC, which Dunn later shut down before launching a new PAC called Texans United for a Conservative Majority.
Regardless, Dunn has become one of the most influential Republican donors in the country, donating $5 million to President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign for the White House, while also co-founding the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank that has produced more than a dozen officials now staffing the Trump administration including Education Secretary Linda McMahon and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
Rogers, meanwhile, has cleared the GOP field and is the lone Republican seeking the nomination for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat.
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Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jon King for questions: info@michiganadvance.com.