# Tim Dunn Tim Dunn (Timothy Dunn) is a Midland, Texas oil billionaire and lay preacher who, with [[Farris Wilks]], built and funds the most powerful political machine in Texas — a donor operation that has pulled the Texas Republican Party sharply rightward and is explicitly organized around the project of [[Christian Nationalism]]. Forbes estimated his net worth at roughly $1.5 billion as of October 2025. He has been called the most effective political donor in Texas and was the single largest individual source of campaign funds in the state in 2022 and 2023. Dunn matters for the KB as a paradigmatic **state-level dominionist megadonor**: rather than chasing national celebrity, he has spent two decades buying durable institutional power inside one state — the think tank that writes the bills, the PACs that primary insurgents against incumbents, and the party apparatus itself — while grounding the whole project in an avowedly theological mission. He is the clearest single illustration of how oil wealth, [[Dominionism]], and [[State Policy Network]]-style policy infrastructure fuse into governing power at the state level. ## Oil wealth: CrownQuest Dunn co-founded **CrownQuest Operating**, a Permian Basin oil-and-gas producer, in 1996 and served as its CEO. By 2022 CrownQuest was among the largest oil producers in Texas. In December 2023 the company's assets were sold to Occidental Petroleum in a deal valued at roughly $12.4 billion, converting an operating oil fortune into liquid wealth at the same moment Dunn was scaling up his national political giving. His business interests give him a direct financial stake in the anti-climate, anti-renewables policy agenda his money also funds. ## The political machine Dunn's giving has run through a sequence of vehicles, each escalating in ambition: - **[[Empower Texans]]** — Founded in 2006 with Dunn as primary financial backer, originally to fight a tax on investor-financed oil wells. For years it was his main instrument for electing hard-right insurgents to the Legislature and punishing Republicans deemed insufficiently conservative. - **[[Defend Texas Liberty PAC]]** — By 2022 Dunn had given the PAC nearly $10 million; almost all of his 2022–2023 donations went to it. The PAC challenged GOP incumbents from the right and became nationally notorious in October 2023 when its president hosted white-nationalist [[Nick Fuentes]]. - **Texans United for a Conservative Majority** — A successor PAC into which Dunn and Wilks poured more than $3 million starting in January 2024. Of 28 Texas House candidates the two backed in the 2024 primaries, 11 won outright and eight more advanced to runoffs. Dunn and Wilks's 2023 donations made up roughly a quarter of the Texas GOP's funding for the year, giving the two men extraordinary leverage over the state party — including over its leadership during Matt Rinaldi's tenure as chairman. ## Texas Public Policy Foundation Dunn is vice chairman of the board of the [[Texas Public Policy Foundation]] (TPPF), the Austin think tank — a leading [[State Policy Network]] affiliate — that generates much of the model legislation taken up by the Texas Legislature and copied across red states, from aggressive property-tax cuts to measures throttling renewable-energy growth. He helped found TPPF's criminal-justice initiative. TPPF is the policy-production half of Dunn's machine: it writes what his PACs then elect legislators to pass. ## Christian nationalism and dominionism Dunn's politics are avowedly those of [[Christian Nationalism]], inseparable from his theology. He founded Midland Bible Church more than 25 years ago and still preaches there. He sits on the boards of the Grace School of Theology and the [[First Liberty Institute]] (a Christian legal-defense organization), and chairs the Christian Advisory Board of the Israel Allies Foundation. Reporting by ProPublica and Texas Monthly has characterized his project in terms of [[Dominionism]] — the belief that Christians are called to take control of government and society — making him a leading financier of the movement to erode church-state separation in Texas. ## Trump backing Long focused on state politics, Dunn became a major national Trump donor in the 2024 cycle, ranking among the top ten individual donors to [[Donald Trump]] after contributing $5 million through his company to a pro-Trump super PAC ([[MAGA Inc]]). The June 2024 Rolling Stone profile "Meeting Tim Dunn, the Texas Oil Billionaire Donor Now Backing Trump" marked his arrival as a nationally significant figure rather than a purely Texas one. ## Federal spending — 2026 cycle **On 2026-08-05 Dunn gave $1,300,000.00 to [[Protecting America's Future]]**, an Austin-based independent-expenditure-only super PAC (FEC **C00890608**), disclosed on that committee's Q3 2026 Form 3X — file **2020247**, received **2026-10-13T01:23:28**, coverage 2026-07-01 to 2026-09-30. | Item | Detail | |---|---| | Amount | **$1,300,000.00**, one `SA11AI` row | | Date | 2026-08-05 | | Filed as | `DUNN, TIMOTHY` — occupation **CEO**, employer **CrownQuest**, PO Box 52268, Midland TX | | Recipient | [[Protecting America's Future]], FEC C00890608 | | Share of the recipient's quarterly receipts | **99.85%** — there is no second contributor on the document | | Target of the spending | **oppose [[James Talarico]]**, [[TX-Sen-2026]] | It is **the first itemised federal contribution at or above $1,000,000.00 from Dunn recorded in this vault**, and it marks a shift in kind rather than in scale: the machine documented above operates almost entirely at state level, and this is the same money in a **federal** super PAC spending in a **general election** against a Democratic Senate nominee. The committee's whole programme — $798,054.97 through 2026-09-30 plus a further $60,966.89 disclosed on 2026-10-13 — is digital advertising through Digital Room LLC and three other firms, at roughly 1/60th the scale of the broadcast notices dominating the race. See [[Tim Dunn 1.3M to Protecting America's Future]]. ## Connection to the KB Ecosystem - **[[Farris Wilks]]**: Dunn's co-financier; together they form the two-man donor base of the Texas hard right. - **[[Texas Public Policy Foundation]]** / **[[State Policy Network]]**: the policy-production infrastructure Dunn helps govern and fund. - **[[Empower Texans]]** / **[[Defend Texas Liberty PAC]]**: the electoral-enforcement arm that primaries insufficiently-conservative Republicans. - **[[Christian Nationalism]]** / **[[Dominionism]]**: the theological program his money is organized to advance. - **[[Nick Fuentes]]**: the 2023 Defend Texas Liberty meeting tied Dunn's flagship PAC to overt white nationalism. - **[[MAGA Inc]]**: vehicle for his $5M entry into top-tier national Trump funding. - **[[Protecting America's Future]]**: his 2026 federal vehicle, funded 99.85% by him, spending against [[James Talarico]] in [[TX-Sen-2026]]. ## See Also - [[Protecting America's Future]] - [[Tim Dunn 1.3M to Protecting America's Future]] - [[TX-Sen-2026]] - [[Farris Wilks]] - [[Texas Public Policy Foundation]] - [[Defend Texas Liberty PAC]] - [[Empower Texans]] - [[Christian Nationalism]] - [[Dominionism]] - [[First Liberty Institute]] - [[State Policy Network]] - [[Texas History Hub]]