An organization closely linked to one of Florida’s biggest business-lobbying groups gave more than $1 million last year to the dark-money nonprofit at the center of Florida’s “ghost” candidate scandal, according to records obtained Thursday by the Orlando Sentinel.
In a tax return filed this week with the Internal Revenue Service, the Tallahassee-based nonprofit called “Let’s Preserve the American Dream Inc.” reported that it gave $1.15 million in 2020 to “Grow United Inc.,” another nonprofit that in turn provided more than half a million dollars used by Republican strategists to promote obscure independent candidates in three key Senate races — including the Orlando-area race won by Sen. Jason Brodeur of Sanford.
Both groups are dark-money nonprofits that do not reveal their donors. But Let’s Preserve the American Dream has extensive ties to Associated Industries of Florida, the corporate-lobbying group whose biggest donors include utility giant Florida Power & Light, sugar growers Florida Crystals and U.S. Sugar, theme-park operator Walt Disney World and for-profit hospital chain HCA Healthcare.
Let’s Preserve the American Dream is run by Ryan Tyson, a longtime political advisor to AIF, and it operates out of AIF’s 15,000-square-foot mansion in Tallahassee. Tyson, a former AIF vice president, did not respond to requests for comment Thursday, though he previously said AIF is not involved in Let’s Preserve the American Dream’s activities.
Tyson and AIF have not been accused of wrongdoing.
“AIF and its employees are not involved in this matter,” said Sarah Bascom, a spokesperson for AIF, in an emailed statement. “We have numerous tenants in our building and, as we have said before, we do not get involved in their business.”
The newly disclosed grant makes Let’s Preserve the American Dream the largest known donor to Grow United, which was the source of $550,000 spent on mailers that touted the independents in the three Senate races as progressive alternatives, apparently to siphon votes from Democratic candidates.
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