Uline

Quick Take

Uline is private, family owned, and the wealth behind one of the biggest conservative donor operations in the country. The distinction that governs this entire profile: the giant political numbers attached to the Uline name are the personal contributions of Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, tracked by their employer listing, not spending from a company treasury or a corporate PAC. Uline itself operates no political action committee and reported $110,000 in federal lobbying in 2024. The family's federal giving in the 2024 cycle alone exceeded $145 million, better than 99 percent of it Republican.[2] The politics here are real, heavily documented, and directional. They belong to the owners.

Where the Money Actually Goes

Here the subset matters more than in almost any profile RedRightBuyer publishes, so it is worth being exact about what the numbers count.

OpenSecrets aggregates political contributions by the donor's listed employer. Because Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein list Uline as their employer, their personal donations appear under a "Uline Inc" organization profile. That profile reported $146,027,201 in the 2024 election cycle. Of that total, $145,942,201 came from individuals and $0 came from the organization itself.[2] In plain terms: OpenSecrets tallies a donor's giving under whatever employer the donor lists, so the Uihleins' personal contributions appear under "Uline Inc" even though the money is their own and none of it is spent by the company. Uline operates no corporate political action committee, and the PAC column reads $0 in every cycle on record.[2]

The party split is not close. In the 2024 cycle better than 99 percent of the giving went to Republicans, and the two prior presidential cycles look the same, each above 99 percent Republican in 2022 and 2020.[2] Running the totals oldest to newest, the giving tracked under the Uline name grew from about $23.9 million in 2016 to $68.5 million in 2020 to $89.8 million in 2022 to $146 million in 2024, a fourfold rise across four cycles.[2]

The recipients are large conservative outside-spending groups rather than individual candidates. In the 2024 cycle the top destinations were Restoration PAC ($80.1 million), Club for Growth Action ($22.4 million), Make America Great Again Inc ($10 million), Fair Courts America ($9.55 million), and Never Back Down, the super PAC that backed Ron DeSantis before he exited the presidential race ($3 million).[2] About 98 percent of the 2024 cycle total went to outside groups, with under half a percent going directly to candidates.[2] OpenSecrets reporting has separately put the Uihleins' combined federal giving above $250 million since 2016, with the large majority from Richard.[1]

The Company's Own Political Footprint Is Small

Set the family's personal giving aside and look only at the company, and the picture inverts.

Uline reported $110,000 in federal lobbying in 2024 and $50,000 in 2023, retaining a single lobbyist in each of those years, none of whom had previously held a government job.[2] The company has no corporate PAC and reported no independent outside spending.[2] For a firm with roughly $11 billion in annual revenue, that is a modest federal footprint, and it stands in sharp contrast to the owners' personal activity.

Elizabeth Uihlein uses the company's own channels to express political views. She signs letters in Uline's product catalogs, which are mailed to millions of homes and businesses, and they frequently carry political commentary. ProPublica reported that a 2022 catalog carried a long tribute to her late father-in-law that closed on the lament that raising children "was easier in an easier time," before "legalized marijuana, defund the police or social media."[7] The catalog letters are the clearest point at which the owners' politics reach the corporate brand directly, and unlike the family's giving they travel under the Uline name itself.

The company's internal channels have carried political content too. During the 2024 cycle Uline sent employees at its Wisconsin headquarters a survey, billed as anonymous, asking whom they planned to vote for and pairing the question with a red-elephant and blue-donkey graphic; the Guardian reported that employees had to log in to verify they worked at the company, which several said undercut the promise of anonymity.[8] Earlier, in 2020, Elizabeth Uihlein emailed state legislators opposing pandemic stay-at-home orders and circulated to employees a petition to recall Wisconsin's governor, Tony Evers, over his public-health restrictions, as Bloomberg and the Guardian reported.[8] These are company-channel actions rather than personal checks, and they are the other place the owners' politics reach the corporate brand directly.

Founders Who Became Megadonors

Uline was founded in 1980 in the Uihleins' Chicago-area basement, with startup funds from Richard's father, Edgar Uihlein.[3] Richard Uihlein is a descendant of the family behind the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company.[3] The company's first product was the H-101 carton sizer, and it grew by reinvesting profits, taking no outside equity, which is why the family retains near-total ownership to this day.[4] Uline is now headquartered in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, employs more than 9,000 people across North American distribution centers, and reported revenue estimated at about $11 billion.[3] The family's wealth tracked the company's growth closely: ProPublica, drawing on tax records, reported the Uihleins' income rose from about $18 million in 2002 to $712 million in 2018.[7] The couple have since moved Uline shares into a dynasty trust that, according to tax and Florida business records reviewed by ProPublica, now appears to hold a majority of the company, a structure tax specialists say is typically used to shield family wealth from estate tax across generations.[7]

Conservative politics runs back generations in the family. According to ProPublica's review of historical records, Richard's father, Edgar Uihlein Jr., was listed in 1963 on the national finance committee of the John Birch Society, and the family's giving to the original 1940s America First Committee is a matter of disclosed record.[7] That lineage is the family's, not the company's, but it is the backdrop the Uihleins themselves cite: in a rare 2018 interview Richard said he took his politics from his father.[7] The scale, however, is a more recent chapter than the company. Before the 2010 Citizens United decision, Richard Uihlein was described as a modest but reliable Republican donor.[5] The scale changed afterward. By the 2018 midterms the Uihleins were among the biggest Republican donors in the country, and by 2022 Richard was the single largest conservative donor of the cycle.[1][5] Their giving has favored anti-tax and limited-government groups such as Club for Growth, along with a range of conservative candidates and causes; it has also funded groups that promoted claims of fraud in the 2020 election, according to OpenSecrets.[1]

Elizabeth Uihlein serves as the company's president and Richard as chief executive; their children hold executive roles, and the couple separately own a cluster of small businesses in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, through a holding company.[6] The giving is generally reported as Richard's more than Elizabeth's: of the $250 million-plus figure since 2016, OpenSecrets attributed over $233 million to Richard himself.[1]

What Uline Sells

Uline is a business-to-business catalog distributor, not a consumer retailer. It stocks more than 40,000 products, including shipping boxes, mailers, bubble wrap and packing materials, warehouse racking and equipment, janitorial and safety supplies, and retail and industrial packaging. Its model emphasizes deep inventory, same-day shipping, and a thick printed catalog mailed to business customers across North America. Customers are businesses of every size rather than walk-in shoppers.[3]

Where to Find Them

Uline sells through its catalog and website at uline.com, serving business customers across the United States, Canada and Mexico from distribution centers near major metropolitan areas. Corporate headquarters are in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. The company is privately held and files no periodic public reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Footnotes

[1] Anna Massoglia and OpenSecrets, "Billionaire megadonor couple funding election denial with extensive influence machine and dark money network," OpenSecrets, September 2023, updated 2025. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2023/09/billionaire-megadonor-couple-funding-election-denial-with-extensive-influence-machine-dark-money-network-uihlein/ Accessed August 6, 2026.

[2] Uline Inc organization profile, OpenSecrets, based on FEC data released February 6, 2025 (contributions) and Senate lobbying data released January 23, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/uline-inc/summary?id=D000030599 Accessed August 6, 2026.

[3] "Uline," Wikipedia, citing company filings and reporting, accessed August 6, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uline

[4] "About Uline: Company History," Uline corporate site, accessed August 6, 2026. https://www.uline.com/Corporate/About_History

[5] "Richard Uihlein," Ballotpedia, accessed August 6, 2026. https://ballotpedia.org/Richard_Uihlein

[6] "Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein," Wikipedia, accessed August 6, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_and_Elizabeth_Uihlein

[7] Justin Elliott, Megan O'Matz, and Doris Burke, "That Cardboard Box in Your Home Is Fueling Election Denial," ProPublica, co-published with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 26, 2022. https://www.propublica.org/article/uline-uihlein-election-denial

[8] Michael Sainato, "Workers at firm owned by top Trump donors say they were sent survey asking who they would vote for," The Guardian, November 2024; and reporting by Bloomberg News, April 2020, on Elizabeth Uihlein's opposition to Wisconsin stay-at-home orders. Accessed August 6, 2026.