The Most Bought Man in Michigan
A donor map and a vote map are the same map.
The full report is below — also published on Beehiiv — with its receipt trail and source ladder. Every claim below clears at two-of-three independent sources before publication, with right-of-reply offered to every named subject.
Last issue, we introduced three billionaire families buying a Michigan Senate seat. $67 million for one man. Today, we pull the full file on that man — because the distance between $655,000 and $17.5 million is the entire story. A 2,669% return on public service.
No company founded. No product invented. No inheritance. Just the revolving door, spinning at full speed.
Now what.
Rogers chaired the House Intelligence Committee from 2011 to 2015 — seventeen agencies, $70 billion combined budget. After retiring, he collected board fees from the industries he used to oversee. IronNet Cybersecurity paid him $724,887 — co-founded by the former NSA director, the company went bankrupt, retail investors were wiped out, Rogers kept his check. Nokia paid him $460,000 for services his campaign refused to explain. AT&T hired him as Chief Security Adviser — the same AT&T trying to sell the Huawei products Rogers once called a national security threat. Salary: undisclosed.
Then he left Michigan. A $1.7 million mansion in Cape Coral, Florida. 4,751 square feet. He filed a $50,000 homestead exemption — which under Florida law means claiming it as your primary residence. He pulled a $327,000 renovation permit. Registered to vote in Florida. When he decided to run for Michigan's Senate seat, he bought a $295,000 house in White Lake. 728 square feet. One bedroom. He never lived in it. The original structure was demolished. He stayed at his sister-in-law's house. His Florida voter registration wasn't canceled until reporters started asking questions.
Now $67 million in outside money is being spent to put him in the Senate. And the people writing the checks have one very specific ambition.
April 2026 • 6 AM ET
● Based on FEC filings, congressional financial disclosures, and named reporting from Michigan Advance, Detroit News, and Bridge Michigan
"My whole life is here."
Mike Rogers • Campaigning from Florida • November 2025
That's the pitch. Here's the receipt: a $1.7 million Florida mansion with a homestead exemption, and a 728-square-foot Michigan house he never lived in. He spent more than a week campaigning from Florida while telling Michigan audiences his whole life was there.
Number of the Day
$67M
Outside money committed to one Michigan Senate seat
| $21M (2024) | → | $67M (2026) | +219% |
In 2024, $250 million was spent on this race. Rogers lost by 19,000 votes. They came back with more.
Only 20% of his donors are from Michigan. 53% are from out of state.
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This Week
🔥 What We're Exposing
I.
Four Billionaires. $1.9 Trillion. One Senate Candidate.
Mike Rogers (R-MI) • MI-SEN 2026 • 5 sources
Stephen Schwarzman (Blackstone, $1 trillion AUM): $2 million to super PAC + $7K direct. Ken Griffin (Citadel, $65B AUM): $2.5 million. Paul Singer (Elliott, $69B AUM): $50,000. Marc Rowan (Apollo, $700B AUM): $7,000 direct.
Combined assets under management: nearly $2 trillion. All writing checks to a man who wants a seat on the Senate Banking Committee — the committee that regulates banks, hedge funds, and private equity.
This is not a donation. It is an investment portfolio.
Rogers’ career total from the securities and investment industry: $1.25 million — top 11% of all lawmakers. He voted twice against Dodd-Frank. He supported a bill written by banking lobbyists to exempt big banks from reforms. As a Michigan state senator, he co-authored the Credit Reform Act — which eliminated interest rate caps on second mortgages.
Add in $45 million from the Senate Leadership Fund — the largest, earliest SLF investment in Michigan history — plus $1.5 million in media buys from Americans for Prosperity Action (Koch network). Total outside spending: $67 million and climbing.
20%
of his donors are from Michigan. 53% are from out of state.
Why it matters The people funding the campaign are the people the Banking Committee regulates. Two trillion dollars in combined assets writing checks to a man who has never once voted against their interests. Michigan voters are being outspent by billionaires in New York, Florida, and Texas.
II.
$5 Million From a Man Who Has Never Set Foot in Michigan
Tim Dunn (CrownQuest Operating) • Great Lakes Conservative Fund • 3 sources
Tim Dunn gave $5 million to the super PAC backing Rogers — two checks of $2.5 million (April and June 2025). He is the CEO of CrownQuest Operating, a Midland, Texas oil company. He has never lived in Michigan. He has no business in Michigan. He has no obvious reason to care about a Michigan Senate race.
But Tim Dunn is not just an oil executive. He co-founded the America First Policy Institute — the think tank that staffed the second Trump administration with 12+ officials. He told a Jewish speaker of the Texas legislature that only Christians should hold leadership positions. He is one of the most aggressive funders of the Christian nationalist movement in America.
In 2023, a senior official at one of Dunn’s Texas PACs took a meeting with Nick Fuentes — the open white nationalist and Holocaust denier. Dunn called the meeting “a serious blunder” — not a disavowal, a logistical complaint. The Texas Tribune documented further ties between Dunn’s political operation and Fuentes’s orbit. Dunn also gave $5 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign.
He has never lived in Michigan. But he is buying a Michigan senator.
Why it matters A Christian nationalist oil billionaire from Texas is the financial engine of a Michigan Senate campaign. Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, the Arab American communities in Dearborn — Michigan gets a senator picked by a man who believes only Christians should lead.
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MIKE ROGERS
THE MONEY RECEIPT
================================
NET WORTH (2015) $ 655,000
NET WORTH (2023) $17,500,000
RETURN ON SERVICE 2,669%
BOARD SEATS 23
--------------------------------
TOP DONORS (2026 CYCLE)
Senate Leadership Fund $45M
Tim Dunn (TX oil) $5M
Ken Griffin (Citadel) $2.5M
Schwarzman (Blackstone) $2M
Koch Network $1.5M
General Atomics $275K
Paul Singer (Elliott) $50K
Marc Rowan (Apollo) $7K
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COMBINED AUM OF TOP 4
BILLIONAIRE DONORS $1.9T
BANKING COMMITTEE SEAT WANTED
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DONORS FROM MICHIGAN 20%
DONORS FROM OUT OF STATE 53%
DONORS FROM VIRGINIA 42%
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FL MANSION $ 1,700,000
MI "HOME" (728 sq ft)$ 295,000
(never lived there)
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2024 RACE TOTAL $250,000,000
2024 RESULT LOST
2026 OUTSIDE MONEY $67,000,000+
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PAID IN FULL
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This is Issue #002. Every week: names, receipts, and the stories they'd rather you didn't read.
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Friendly Fire
Where Is the Michigan Counter-Oppo?
Every number in this issue is on FEC.gov. Free. Public. Searchable. It has been there for months. The Michigan Democratic Party has a press operation. The DSCC has a research team. Gary Peters is retiring and presumably has opinions about who replaces him. So where is the counter-oppo?
Rogers’ residency alone — a $1.7 million Florida mansion versus a 728-square-foot shack he never occupied — should be a thirty-second ad running on every screen in Michigan right now. It is not.
If a newsletter can pull these receipts in a weekend, a funded Senate campaign has no excuse. Democrats cannot complain about being outspent if they refuse to spend what they have on the arguments that actually work.
Why it matters $67 million in outside money is beatable. Rogers lost by 19,000 votes with $250 million behind him. But only if the other side shows up with a message. The Florida mansion ad writes itself. Someone needs to run it.
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Blind Items
Follow the Money
WHICH sitting Republican governor converted his campaign committee into a “leadership PAC” that has paid $380,000 to a consulting firm owned by his former campaign manager — while the firm simultaneously bills the state party? Same dollars. Same people. Two invoices.
WHICH Democratic Senate candidate’s joint fundraising committee routed $1.2 million through a newly formed LLC registered at the home address of his finance director’s spouse? The LLC was formed eleven days before the first payment. It has no website and no other clients.
Names drop next issue. Subscribe so you don't miss it.
Burn Notice
Last issue, we gave you the headline: $67 million for one Senate seat. This issue, the full file. Sixty-seven million dollars is designed to make opposition feel futile. It is not. Rogers lost this race before — by 19,000 votes — with $250 million behind him. Michigan voters saw through it once.
The receipts are on FEC.gov. Free. Public. Searchable. Committee C00849810. Now you know how to read them.
Episode 2 of the podcast drops Monday with the full 25-minute breakdown. Next issue: the deeper Rogers file — the wife who ran a military contractor while he investigated Benghazi, the Saudi nuclear deal, and the 111 votes that started it all.
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