The political action committee of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear reported raising $618,210 in the first half of this year, as he flirts with a potential run for president in 2028.
A majority of the funds raised by Beshear super PAC In This Together in the first six months of 2025 came from seven donors who contributed at least $10,000 each. The PAC spent $341,008 in that period, mostly on political consultants.
In This Together raised $2.6 million in 2024, spending nearly $1.8 million of those funds to support candidates and issues on the ballot in Kentucky and other states during that busy election year.
The PAC is a tool for Beshear to help candidates he supports, while also building support from allies he may need help from in future political endeavors. The governor has not ruled out a run for president and is making political speeches in early primary states, just as he did in swing states last summer when he was being considered as a potential vice presidential pick for Democrats.
The largest contributor to Beshear’s PAC so far this year was Elizabethtown real estate development firm TDA Properties, owned by Tim Aulbach, which gave $100,000. Also going by the name The Land Store, the company touts large development projects across the South.
Aulbach has been a contributor to Beshear in both of his gubernatorial campaigns, but is more commonly a donor to local Republican candidates in Hardin County and surrounding areas.
Ullico Management Co., a D.C.-based insurance and finance company serving labor unions and their members, contributed $90,000 to the PAC.
Las Vegas-based gambling company ECL Entertainment also contributed $75,000. The company owns the Kentucky Downs race track in Franklin, as well as so-called “racinos” in Bowling Green, Williamsburg and Corbin, which have “historical horse racing machines” that resemble slot machines and sports betting.
Two Tompkinsville companies owned by Randy Cleary gave a combined $15,000 to the Beshear PAC in April. Cleary Construction received an $18 million state contract for a road construction project in Bullitt County last year, and won a contract for a $130 million road construction project in Louisville last month.
Also contributing $10,000 each was Louisville Gas and Electric, one of Kentucky’s largest electric utility companies, and McGhee Engineering, a civil engineering firm in Guthrie that does work on many municipal water system projects.
In This Together also received $5,000 contributions from 28 individuals and groups, including his father, former Gov. Steve Beshear, Frankfort lobbyists Bob Babbage and Sherman Brown, the national steelworkers union, Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Distillers Association.
There is no record of how much was received or spent by Heckbent, which is the dark money 501(c)(4) of Beshear that can accept contributions of unlimited amounts that do not have to be disclosed to the public. That dark money PAC spent at least $575,000 last year on contributions to PACs opposing a constitutional ballot referendum to allow public money to go to private education and supporting Kentucky Supreme Court candidate Pamela Goodwine, who won her race.
In the first half of this year, In this Together paid $129,000 to GPS Impact, a political consulting firm in Iowa, for access to donor lists, digital ads and digital consulting.
Beshear’s PAC also paid $43,829 to Outperform Strategies, the firm of his top political consultant Eric Hyers, as well as $18,000 to Public Policy Polling for polls.
State government and politics reporting is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
