Claim that Chicago Cubs owner gave to Wis. Supreme Court hopeful Schimel is Mostly True

Ask a Wisconsinite to name something that gets their blood boiling, and it’s a safe bet the answer will be about politics or the sports teams to our south. 

A recent X post raises the question: What about both? 

First, a little context: Wisconsin residents will head to the polls April 1 for the next in our seemingly endless cycle of consequential elections, casting a vote for either liberal Dane County Judge Susan Crawford or conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel to serve on the state Supreme Court. 

The winner will determine whether the ideological tilt of the court will remain skewed liberal, which has been the case since the election of Justice Janet Protasiewicz in 2023, or if it will return to a conservative majority, as it had been for 15 years prior. With such high stakes, experts believe the contest will produce a record-breaking level of spending, including from notable individuals and groups outside the campaigns themselves. 

X user Kid Riles pointed out one such individual. 

"To all the Milwaukee Brewers fans who live in Wisconsin: The Chicago Cubs owner is bankrolling Brad Schimel," the post reads. "Vote accordingly." 

We periodically look at claims related to politics that are circulating on social media. So, is the owner of the Cubs really bankrolling Schimel’s campaign? 

Let’s take a look. 

We’ll get the baseball trivia out of the way first. The Ricketts family, headed by billionaire businessman Joe Ricketts, owns the Cubs. Joe’s son Tom is the team’s chairman. 

A look at Schimel’s publicly available campaign finance reports does not show the Ricketts in his list of donors. 

So what gives? The explanation requires some knowledge of campaign finance law in Wisconsin over the past decade. 

The state’s campaign finance laws cap the amount that a person can give to a Supreme Court candidate to $20,000. But under a change the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature made in 2015, political parties can receive unlimited donations, which they can funnel to their preferred candidates. (That change has ultimately benefited Democrats more because they have been able to raise more money.) 

A review of the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s campaign finance reports shows a Jan. 27, 2025 donation from Joe Ricketts of $500,000. After receiving this and other large donations from wealthy individuals, Republican party officials transferred nearly $1.7 million in three donations to Schimel’s campaign. 

It’s illegal for a donor to give to the party and say they expect it to flow to a certain candidate, meaning it’s impossible to definitively prove that Ricketts’ money was for Schimel. 

Still, this practice has become a tried-and-true way for donors to get around individual contribution limits — so much so that Schimel encouraged people to do it.  

At a Calumet County Republican Party event last July, Schimel urged those who could afford to give more than $20,000 to give to the state party instead, the Journal Sentinel previously reported, suggesting any money given after the Nov. 5, 2024 election would be transferred to him.

"If you want to give a lot more, you can give that to either of the state parties, and they can transfer it," he said. "They can transfer that to candidates." 

Featured Fact-check

Donald Trump

stated on February 6, 2025 in a Truth Social post

CBS News and “60 Minutes” “replaced” former Vice President Kamala Harris’ interview answers “with completely different, and far better, answers, taken from another part of the interview.”

(The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign filed an ethics complaint in early February over this remark and others by Schimel, who is prohibited by law from personally soliciting campaign donations.)

The state Democratic Party has also made use of this playbook. In January, they received $1 million from billionaire George Soros; $500,000 from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker; $490,000 from Milwaukee philanthropist Lynde Uihlein; $470,000 from retired software engineer Gloria Page, the mother of Google co-founder Larry Page; and $250,000 from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Weeks after receiving those donations, they transferred $2 million in three donations to Crawford’s campaign. 

Now, for the nitty-gritty: the X post claims Ricketts is "bankrolling" Schimel. The dictionary definition of bankroll is "to supply money for," but it’s worth noting that Ricketts is not supplying the majority of the funds in this extraordinarily expensive race. 

ABC Supply owner Diane Hendricks gave $970,000 to the state Republican party in January, and Uline president Liz Uihlein gave $650,000. Even groups backed by Elon Musk have dropped a few million on TV ads and increasing voter turnout for Schimel. 

All told, spending on this election is expected to outpace spending on Wisconsin’s last Supreme Court election in 2023, which totaled more than $56 million and shattered national spending records. 

A post on social media claimed Chicago Cubs owner Joe Ricketts is bankrolling Schimel. 

A review of campaign finance records shows Ricketts gave a large sum to the state GOP, which has alongside Democrats transferred money to preferred candidates in a well-known workaround of individual contribution limits — something Schimel has acknowledged outright. 

Thus, the claim is largely accurate, though it’s missing the context of that workaround, which means we can’t know with complete certainty that Ricketts intended the money for Schimel. 

Our definition of Mostly True is a statement that is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. 

That fits here.