Within 24 hours of receiving $2.5 million from Reid Hoffman, the billionaire LinkedIn founder with documented ties to Jeffrey Epstein’s island, the party transferred $1.9 million to gubernatorial candidate David Crowley’s campaign, according to new campaign finance filings reviewed by WisPolitics.
This isn’t Hoffman’s first major contribution to Wisconsin Democrats. He has given the state party over $15 million since 2019, making him the largest individual Democratic donor in the state’s database. In April 2026, Democrats accepted a $750,000 donation from Hoffman, which also drew criticism from Republican opponents who questioned why Democratic candidates would accept money from someone with Epstein ties.
The latest donation once again raises questions about whether Democrats are willing to accept money from anyone, regardless of their associations.
Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder, visited Epstein’s private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2014, well after Epstein’s 2008 conviction and plea agreement for soliciting prostitution from minors. Hoffman’s name appears 2,668 times in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Epstein files, according to reporting on the database.
But the argument doesn’t address the core issue: Why are Wisconsin Democrats so dependent on Hoffman’s money that they’ll accept it just days before an election?
The $2.5 million donation last week brought Hoffman’s total contributions to Wisconsin Democrats this cycle to at least $3.5 million. And within a day, Crowley’s campaign received nearly three-quarters of it in a subsequent party transfer.
With this latest donation, Wisconsin Democrats appear uniquely willing to accept money from someone with direct connections to one of America’s most infamous criminals.
