Right-leaning billionaires help bankroll California voter ID ballot measure
Backers of a proposition that would require California voters to show government ID before voting have pitched the measure as a commonsense, bipartisan reform with broad public support. In public appearances, they’ve separated their effort from President Donald Trump’s divisive SAVE America Act, a farther-reaching election administration bill that has stalled in Congress.
But so far, the movement to pass the California measure has drawn heavy support from a Republican state lawmaker, his conservative following, and a group of billionaires — many with a recent history of backing Trump and the GOP.
Backers of Proposition 39, which would also require voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, raised more than $10 million so far. The bulk of that total came from large-dollar donors who helped pay for signature gatherers to get the measure on the ballot. Volunteers from Reform California, a conservative group spearheaded by Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, R-Valley Center, also played a major role in gathering signatures.
At least nine billionaires, as tracked by Forbes’ list, have invested in the fundraising committee Californians for Voter ID, which is run by Julie Luckey, the mother of tech billionaire and Trump supporter Palmer Luckey.
The top donor is Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein, who contributed $4 million. Uihlein and his wife, Elizabeth, were the fourth-largest donors to federal elections from 2023 to 2024, according to the nonpartisan campaign finance site Open Secrets. A 2022 ProPublica investigation found the couple backed candidates and groups promoting false claims surrounding the 2020 election.
Other billionaire donors include:
- Attorney Nicole Shanahan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 vice presidential candidate, gave $370,000
- Venture capitalist Douglas Leone contributed $250,000
- Twin investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss each gave $250,000
- Investor Aubrey Chernick gave $150,000 and his wife, Joyce Chernick, added another $25,000
- Venture capitalist Tim Draper contributed $50,000
- Los Angeles real estate developer Rick Caruso gave $25,000
Many of the donors have ties to Republicans. Shanahan endorsed Trump when she and Kennedy dropped out of the presidential race. Leone gave $2 million to Ron DeSantis in his failed 2024 presidential bid, and later, more than $2 million toward electing Trump. The Winklevoss twins each contributed $1 million towards boosting Trump in 2024 and millions more to other GOP committees in recent years. The Chernicks made maximum contributions to GOP gubernatorial hopeful Steve Hilton and have given hundreds of thousands more to Republicans in Congress.
Draper and Caruso cut a different profile. Draper has donated to candidates from both parties, including Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris. He is also funding a new political committee, Grow California, that aims to elect business-friendly candidates to the Legislature. Caruso ran for LA mayor as a centrist Democrat, but was previously a registered Republican.
An April poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies found 56% of respondents supported the voter ID provision. Support dropped to 39% after they were given more context about the measure’s sponsor and opponents.
In an interview, DeMaio dismissed any suggestion that conservatives were providing the animating support for his ballot measure.
“A lot of people are sick and tired of the conspiracy theories and don’t want to have low public trust and confidence in elections, and they see voter ID as the common sense bipartisan way to fix it,” DeMaio said. “Why is that such a mystery?”
Tenoch Flores, a spokesperson for No on Prop 39, a coalition seeking to stop the measure, said it was being driven by “MAGA partisans and right-wing billionaires trying to rig elections in their favor.”
Mike Madrid, an anti-Trump Republican consultant, argued both sides were being disingenuous. He cast doubt on liberals’ claims that photo ID would meaningfully suppress voters and said conservatives' accusations of widespread fraud had never been bourne out by evidence. Instead, he argued this year’s ballot measure was fundamentally a tool to boost GOP turnout.
“The Winklevoss twins and the venture capitalists don’t care about voter ID,” he said. “They care about a Republican Congress.”
