Follow the Money: Fairly donations in Texas HD87
HD 87 candidate's family has political ties to controversial Defend Texas Liberty PAC and West Texas Billionaire's pushing vouchers in Texas
Caroline Fairly, a 25-year-old Amarillo young professional, has announced she is running for the Texas House to represent District 87, which is situated in the Texas Panhandle. District 87 is held by Rep Four Price, who did not file for re-election.
For someone who is very new to the political arena, has little experience, and is untested, Ms. Fairly has an impressive list of endorsements by Texas political heavy hitters such as Sen Ted Cruz, Ken Paxton, Ronny Jackson, and Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley.
Fairly’s newest endorsement is from Governor Greg Abbott, who is exclusively endorsing candidates this cycle who will vote yes on a private school voucher plan in Texas. In November, a group of Conservative Rural Republicans in the Texas House stopped the voucher plan to use taxpayer dollars to pay for private schools because the plan was too expensive and did not contain any accountability measures. The Governor could not get his vote, so he is campaigning with a $6M donation from an out-of-state donor to change the legislature.
Carolines’s father is a wealthy Amarillo Businessman who, since 2020, has become a major player in both Amarillo and Texas politics. Some folks are asking whether the Fairly’s family donations would have an impact on endorsements that his daughter Caroline has received.
Our findings
We researched state and federal ethics committee reports and financial documents, and the Fairly family has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to political candidates and committees. There is a direct link between those donations and endorsements to the Fairly campaign.
The Endorsements
Cole Stanley - Alex Fairly gave a $40,000 donation to Cole Stanley in his race for Amarillo Mayor, and the donation is reported to be the largest donation made by an individual to an individual in Amarillo’s recent history. After taking the large donation, Cole Stanley said he would drop a case pending against the city of Amarillo by Mr. Fairly if he was elected. Fairly and Stanley were hyper-critical of Spearman’s Ginger Nelson when she served as Mayor of Amarillo.
Attorney General Ken Paxton - Fairly’s Company, Dealon, LLC, donated $100,000 to Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2022 during his re-election and made substantial donations to Defend Texas Liberty, a pro-Paxton organization.
Senator Ted Cruz - Fairly donated $50,0000 to Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s Victory Fund in September of 2023, just about a month before Ms. Fairly announced that she would be running for office. They also personally maxed out donations to Senator Cruz and made $56,500 in donations to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC).
Senator Kevin Sparks - Midland businessman Kevin Sparks received a $50,000 donation from Fairly during his 2022 election. Fairly’s contribution was Spark’s 5th largest donation, and Midland billionaire Tim Dunn was Spark’s top donor at $200,000. Sparks announced that he would challenge Sen. Kel Seliger in the 2020 March Primary. After a redistricting session that put Amarillo and Midland (Midland has a larger population) into the same Senate district, Seliger did not run for re-election. Seliger believes he was redistricted out of his seat after clashes with Lt. Gov Dan Patrick.
Congressman Ronny Jackson - The Fairly’s have maxed out personal donations to Congressman Ronny Jackson. Additionally, they have donated over $300,000 to the Miles of Greatness PAC, which was a super PAC set up to support Jackson’s campaign in 2020. According to her bio, Ms. Fairly worked on the congressional staff for Jackson after he was elected. Jackson, who is not without controversy, was detained this summer at the White Deer Rodeo after interfering with first responders and then proceeded to cuss out a DPS officer in what looked on video.
Amarillo Professional Firefighters Association - Fairly’s company, Dealon, LLC, made a $25,000 donation to the Amarillo Professional Firefighters Association, and since that time, Caroline has received their endorsement.
Follow the Money
The Fairly supported candidates through several avenues during the 2020, 2022, and 2024 election cycles and have given over $1.2M in political contributions. We have created this chart showing donations from all sources since 2020. Before 2020, their political donations were minimal. (These donations reflect reports through Dec 31, 2023 and we will update this story with new filings next week.)
In addition to the direct link between donations and endorsements, Fairly has been a substantial contributor to several local, state, and federal PACS.
Miles of Greatness SUPER PAC
The Fairly ‘s made very large financial contributions to Miles of Greatness, a super PAC that was set up to support Ronny Jackson. $64,0000 of this PAC money was used to pay for TV and mailers opposing locally grown candidate Josh Winegarner.
Federal Elections Commission (FEC) data shows that the Fairly family was one of the main funders of the Miles of Greatness PAC, which was formed during the 2020 Primary race between Ronny Jackson and Josh Winegarner. The Miles of Greatness Super PAC raised around $1M, with Fairly donating $305,550, nearly 1/3 of that total amount raised by that PAC. The Miles of Greatness PAC reported spending $669,948 to support the campaign of Ronny Jackson and reported spending $65,000 of that to “oppose” Josh Winegarner. According to the FEC records, it looks as if The Miles of Greatness PAC was formed specifically for the benefit of Ronny Jackson, as it has not spent any money on candidates or races since 2020.
Defend Texas Liberty PAC
The Fairlys have strong ties to the two Midland billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks. We’ve seen the dirty work of the money from Wilks and Dunn before, as they were two of the big funders behind the efforts of Empower Texas (now dissolved) and Texas Right to Life, who attacked Conservatives Four Price and Ken King during their last campaigns. These groups falsely accused King and Price of being pro-abortion and sent mailers into their Districts spreading those lies. John Beilue wrote a piece in the Amarillo paper in 2018 exposing those efforts.
Currently, the main funding organization for Wilks & Dunn's efforts is the Defend Texas Liberty PAC. Fairly made a large donation to DTL PAC this summer of over $150,000, and his company Dealon, LLC also donated $64,000 to DLT, making Fairly one of the largest donors of all time to DTL PAC.
Defend Texas Liberty is an organization that is under heavy criticism from the right after it was reported that their President, Jonathan Stickland, hosted a meeting for over six hours with Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist, antisemitic social media influencer (you should look him up, but I warned you he’s trash). Many other individuals and organizations with past affiliations with DTL have publically separated themselves from the group, including members of the State Party Executive Committee. The Fairly family has been silent on this issue.
Defend Texas Liberty PAC, along with Wilkes and Dunn, are backers and strong funders of Attorney General Ken Paxton, and during his impeachment trial this fall in the Texas Senate, they made an ill-timed donation of $3M to Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, raising questions as to the ability of Patrick to serve as an unbiased judge.
Paxton’s legal troubles remain, and although he won a political fight and was acquitted by the Senate, Paxton is still under indictment for securities fraud and involved in a whistleblower case involving his former staff members, in which a Republican Texas Supreme court has ruled he must sit for depositions.
Most recently, it has been uncovered that Texas Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi, who is a strong defender of Paxton and has viscously attacked the Texas House Republicans for the impeachment trial and not being conservative enough, has been working as an attorney for Wilks, which some are calling as a major conflict of interest.
Dunn-Wilks and their associates are the money behind many of the efforts to pass private school vouchers in Texas and efforts to defeat the rural Republican legislators who oppose them. Fairly has said she is pro “school choice,” which signals she would vote for private school voucher programs. Rep. Four Price was one of the 21 Rural Republicans who voted against vouchers.