The super PAC of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear raised $4.3 million in 2025, as the term-limited Democrat considers a political future beyond the state borders.
After raising $1.4 million in the first half of the year, In This Together PAC reported in its new federal filings with the FEC and IRS that it raised more than double that total in the second half of 2025.
As Beshear flirts with a potential run for president in 2028 and takes over as chair of the Democratic Governors Association this year, his PAC has picked up the pace of its fundraising, exceeding its $2.5 million haul in 2024.
In This Together received at least $100,000 last year from eight different companies and individuals, with half of those in the horse racing and gambling industries. Two individuals each gave the PAC $400,000: a Maryland-based real estate developer and a physician at a Pennsylvania hospital.
Beshear’s PAC also spent more than $1.4 million last year, making some friends along the way. Much of its 2025 spending consisted of contributions to allied Democratic candidates across the country, as well as state Democratic Party committees.
Here’s a look at some of the top donors and industries that gave heavily to Beshear’s PAC, and some of its beneficiaries.
Pennsylvania doctor, horse industry top donations
The top donor to In This Together in 2025 was Ashish Patel, a doctor from Pennsylvania who contributed a total of $450,000 in the latter half of the year.
The PAC’s report listed Patel’s occupation as a physician at Reading Hospital, though the hospital’s website does not list a doctor with that name. A donor with the same name and employer also contributed $100,000 to the campaign of Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger last year.
The next largest donor to Beshear’s PAC was Andrew Schwartzberg, a real estate developer based in Maryland and California that is also part owner of the Charlotte Hornets NBA franchise. Schwartzberg had already contributed $325,000 in the first half of the year, but gave another $100,000 on the final day of the year.
Several major horse racing companies and thoroughbred owners also combined to direct half a million dollars to Beshear’s PAC.
ECL Entertainment — which owns the Kentucky Downs race track in Franklin, as well as so-called “racinos” in Bowling Green, Williamsburg and Corbin — contributed $110,000 over the course of the year. Horse racing and sports betting giant Churchill Downs also contributed $105,000, while Lexington Trots Breeders Association — which owns the Red Mile racetrack, racino and sports betting facilities in that city — gave $100,000.
Other individual thoroughbred breeders and farm owners who contributed include:
- Maegan Ford Nicholson, whose family owns a thoroughbred farm in Versailles ($100,000)
- Lisa Lourie, a horse breeder and owner who lives in Florida ($50,000)
- Chester Thomas, a thoroughbred owner from Madisonville who also owns a coal mining company and licensed medical marijuana cultivator in Kentucky ($20,000)
- Billy Painter, who owns a thoroughbred farm in Versailles ($10,000)
Elizabethtown real estate development firm TDA Properties, touts large development projects across the South, gave the PAC $100,000 earlier in the year.
In the latter half of 2025, another $100,000 contribution came from out-of-state company 313 West Main St Realty LLC. The owner of the company is Richard Platschek, whose family owns numerous nursing homes in New York and Kentucky.
Unions, state contractors and cryptocurrency firms
As they had in his past runs for governor, labor unions showed up to support Beshear with contributions to his PAC. The national unions of carpenters and electrical workers each contributed $50,000 to In this Together, while the local unions of plumbers and pipefitters in Louisville and Cincinnati combined to give $60,000.
Another CEO of a cryptocurrency company pitched in to Beshear in the latter half of the year, as Michael Novogratz of New-York based Galaxy Digital contributed $50,000. Earlier in the year, Christian Larsen of San Francisco-based Ripple, Inc. had also given $50,000.
Other companies or individuals contributing $50,000 in the latter half of 2025 include:
- DoorDash, the food delivery app
- Jim Bean, the Louisville-based liquor giant
- Rachna Gandhi, the owner of Texas-based health care IT firm MDOfficeManager
- Robert Friedman, a California-based real estate developer
Gainwell Technologies and its subsidiary Carewise Health — two companies with large state contracts to administer Medicaid claims and also lobby the Beshear administration — combined to give $55,000 to In This Together in the latter half of the year.
Two companies with ties to the embattled drug treatment provider Addiction Recovery Care, known as ARC, also contributed $10,000 each to the governor's PAC on the same day in September.
One of those companies is GCC Investments LLC, which is owned by Greg May, a Pikeville businessman and president of the ARC-associated Riverview Assistance Corporation. The other donor was ARIA Kentucky, which operates addiction treatment centers in the state.
ARIA is owned by Ethema Health Corporation, the Florida-based company that announced in October it signed a letter of intent to purchase the Kentucky facilities of ARC. Ethema announced in January that the deal was off, just as another company sued ARC, alleging it defaulted on loan repayments.
Beshear’s top political strategist in his two campaigns for governor, Eric Hyers, is also the strategist for In This Together and his 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Heckbent. Such 501(c)(4) organizations like Heckbent are referred to as “dark money” groups, as they do not have to reveal their donors to the IRS. Heckbent reported raising $1.3 million from anonymous donors in 2024, and will not have to report its fundraising totals for 2025 until later this year.
Beshear declined to voluntarily reveal the name of those donors, telling Kentucky Public Radio that may put those donors at risk of retaliation from the Trump administration. He added that “no contribution has ever gotten somebody something in return from me or from my administration.”
PAC spends on political contributions, consultants and travel
In This Together wound up spending more than $1.4 million in 2025, with most of that going to political allies across the country, travel accommodations and political consultants.
After spending $143,000 in the first half of the year on ads supporting the election of Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford, the PAC contributed another $271,000 to 34 different Democratic candidates or party committees in the latter half of 2025. The largest beneficiaries were in Virginia’s off-year elections, as newly-elected Gov. Abigail Spanberger received $40,000 and newly-elected Attorney General Jay Jones received $15,000.
In This Together also gave $5,000 each to 17 Democratic congressional candidates and a combined $75,000 to the Democratic Party committees of eight states.
Fellow incumbent Democratic governors were also beneficiaries, as Beshear’s PAC gave to the committees of Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs ($25,000), Maryland Gov. Wes Moore ($5,000) and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek ($5,000).
In This Together also reported spending more than $274,000 on strategic and fundraising consultants in the latter half of the year, as well as nearly $100,000 on travel and accommodations. This included $55,250 on charter flights, as Beshear is increasingly taking private planes to political events and fundraisers in other states, instead of using state-owned aircraft.
